Self service demand side platform for broadcast media ad exchange

ABSTRACT

A selection of a broadcast media ad network and a set of parameters including one or both of a goal and a constraint associated with an advertising campaign is received. Based at least in part on said selection and said set of parameters an advertising proposal, the advertising proposal is determined including an identification of a set of broadcasters associated with the selected broadcast media ad network and for each a corresponding advertising plan portion of the advertising proposal. Information representing the advertising proposal is caused to be displayed at a node from which said selection and set of parameters were received.

CROSS REFERENCE TO OTHER APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.15/136,811 entitled SELF SERVICE DEMAND SIDE PLATFORM FOR BROADCASTMEDIA AD EXCHANGE filed Apr. 22, 2016, which claims priority to U.S.Provisional Patent Application No. 62/151,805 entitled SELF SERVICEDEMAND SIDE TOOLS FOR LINEAR BROADCAST AD EXCHANGE filed Apr. 23, 2015,both of which are incorporated herein by reference for all purposes.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Broadcast networks such as those in radio and television offeradvertising spots to finance operations. The matching of advertisingspots to advertisements in a broadcast network differs from the matchingin other media, such as online advertising, at least in part because ofthe nature of planning broadcast schedules in advance and the one-wayone-to-many nature of a broadcast network. Determining advertising spotsin broadcast networks is currently a complex and manual process thatdoes not necessarily maximize benefit to either advertiser orbroadcaster.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Various embodiments of the invention are disclosed in the followingdetailed description and the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 is a functional diagram illustrating a programmed computer systemfor broadcast advertising in accordance with some embodiments.

FIG. 2 is a hierarchical diagram illustrating example parties involvedin the creation and placement of an ad for broadcast.

FIG. 3A is an illustration depicting radio broadcast dayparts.

FIG. 3B are illustrations depicting dynamic inventory.

FIG. 4A is a block diagram illustrating a traditional broadcast system.

FIG. 4B is a block diagram illustrating an example of asidecar-appliance broadcast system.

FIG. 5 is an illustration of remnant proration for a daypartdistributor.

FIG. 6 is an illustration of a flow chart for a dynamic advertisingplacement.

FIG. 7 is an illustration of a flow chart for selection of advertisingspots.

FIG. 8A and FIG. 8B are block diagrams of advertising exchange systems.

FIG. 9 is an illustration of a flow chart for an advertising exchangesystem.

FIG. 10A and FIG. 10B are screenshots for a user interface for a demandside platform.

FIG. 11 is a screenshot for a user interface for a demand side platformworkbench.

FIGS. 12A, 12B, 12C, 12D, 12E, 12F, 12G, 12H, and 12I are screenshotsdetailing a sequence of user interfaces for a demand side platformplanning routine.

FIGS. 13A, 13B, and 13C are screenshots detailing a sequence of userinterfaces for a demand side platform overview.

FIG. 14 is a screenshot to show booking a plan with less than fullhealth.

FIG. 15 is a screenshot to show replanning a booked plan.

FIGS. 16A, 16B, and 16C are screenshots detailing a sequence of userinterfaces for a demand side platform campaign.

FIG. 17 is an illustration of a flow chart for a demand side platform.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The invention can be implemented in numerous ways, including as aprocess; an apparatus; a system; a composition of matter; a computerprogram product embodied on a computer readable storage medium; and/or aprocessor, such as a processor configured to execute instructions storedon and/or provided by a memory coupled to the processor. In thisspecification, these implementations, or any other form that theinvention may take, may be referred to as techniques. In general, theorder of the steps of disclosed processes may be altered within thescope of the invention. Unless stated otherwise, a component such as aprocessor or a memory described as being configured to perform a taskmay be implemented as a general component that is temporarily configuredto perform the task at a given time or a specific component that ismanufactured to perform the task. As used herein, the term ‘processor’refers to one or more devices, circuits, and/or processing coresconfigured to process data, such as computer program instructions.

A detailed description of one or more embodiments of the invention isprovided below along with accompanying figures that illustrate theprinciples of the invention. The invention is described in connectionwith such embodiments, but the invention is not limited to anyembodiment. The scope of the invention is limited only by the claims andthe invention encompasses numerous alternatives, modifications andequivalents. Numerous specific details are set forth in the followingdescription in order to provide a thorough understanding of theinvention. These details are provided for the purpose of example and theinvention may be practiced according to the claims without some or allof these specific details. For the purpose of clarity, technicalmaterial that is known in the technical fields related to the inventionhas not been described in detail so that the invention is notunnecessarily obscured.

A self service demand side platform for a broadcast media ad exchange isdisclosed. In one embodiment, a demand side platform is ‘self service’in that it allows advertisers and ad agencies to directly interface witha broadcast media ad exchange. In one embodiment, demand side platformand its buying experience comprise: an application store for picking adnetworks and/or spot markets; an application store for data providersfor applicable markets; allowing a different audience data book thanthat based on Nielsen and using that for planning; different RFP screensfor different marketplaces/data; providing rich results and/or export ofdata; and enabling different ad campaign actions like canceling acampaign, replanning a campaign, splitting a campaign, and deleting acampaign. Traditionally these demand side tools have been done via abroker or middleman service that may inefficiently add time and/or costto broadcast advertisting.

Any person having ordinary skill in the art will recognize that whilecertain examples are given throughout this specification for radiobroadcast networks and/or stations and corresponding audio media,without loss of generality the same principles and disclosed techniquesmay be applied to television broadcast networks and/or stations andcorresponding video media. Without loss of generality throughout thisspecification “broadcasting” refers generally to the distribution ofaudio, video, and/or multimedia content in a one-to-many model via anyelectronic mass communications medium or combination of media includingelectromagnetic spectrum, over the air/terrestrial media,cable/coaxial/wired media, satellite transmission media, and/or computerreadable media. Broadcasting may also refer to print broadcasting.

Thus, throughout this specification, “media” may refer to any form ofinformation transmission, for example radio, television, othercommunication using electromagnetic waves, cable, and/or computertransmissions. Throughout this specification, “users” refer to anyconsumers of the content, including listeners and viewers of thecontent. Throughout this specification, “broadcast” may refer to anyone-to-many communication, including: radio broadcast, terrestrial radiobroadcast, satellite radio broadcast, cable radio broadcast, digitalradio broadcast, television broadcast, terrestrial television broadcast,satellite television broadcast, cable television broadcast, digitaltelevision broadcast, broadcast over electromagnetic waves, broadcastover electromagnetic signals, broadcast over coaxial cable, broadcastover twisted pair cable, broadcast via dynamic billboards or signs, andstreaming broadcast over interne protocols.

Any person having ordinary skill in the art will recognize that whilecertain examples are given throughout this specification for radiobroadcast networks and/or stations and corresponding audio media,without loss of generality the same principles and disclosed techniquesmay be applied to television broadcast networks and/or stations andcorresponding video media. Without loss of generality throughout thisspecification “broadcasting” refers generally to the distribution ofaudio, video, and/or multimedia content in a one-to-many model via anyelectronic mass communications medium or combination of media includingelectromagnetic spectrum, over the air/terrestrial media,cable/coaxial/wired media, satellite transmission media, streaming,and/or computer readable media. Broadcasting may also refer to printbroadcasting.

The example of radio is given now, but these principles may be appliedfor example to television similarly.

FIG. 1 is a functional diagram illustrating a programmed computer systemfor broadcast advertising in accordance with some embodiments. As shown,FIG. 1 provides a functional diagram of a general purpose computersystem programmed to execute broadcast advertising in accordance withsome embodiments. As will be apparent, other computer systemarchitectures and configurations can be used to execute broadcastadvertising. Computer system 100, which includes various subsystems asdescribed below, includes at least one microprocessor subsystem, alsoreferred to as a processor or a central processing unit (“CPU”) 102. Forexample, processor 102 can be implemented by a single-chip processor orby multiple cores and/or processors. In some embodiments, processor 102is a general purpose digital processor that controls the operation ofthe computer system 100. Using instructions retrieved from memory 110,the processor 102 controls the reception and manipulation of input data,and the output and display of data on output devices, for exampledisplay 118.

Processor 102 is coupled bi-directionally with memory 110, which caninclude a first primary storage, typically a random-access memory(“RAM”), and a second primary storage area, typically a read-only memory(“ROM”). As is well known in the art, primary storage can be used as ageneral storage area and as scratch-pad memory, and can also be used tostore input data and processed data. Primary storage can also storeprogramming instructions and data, in the form of data objects and textobjects, in addition to other data and instructions for processesoperating on processor 102. Also as well known in the art, primarystorage typically includes basic operating instructions, program code,data and objects used by the processor 102 to perform its functions, forexample programmed instructions. For example, primary storage devices110 can include any suitable computer-readable storage media, describedbelow, depending on whether, for example, data access needs to bebi-directional or uni-directional. For example, processor 102 can alsodirectly and very rapidly retrieve and store frequently needed data in acache memory, not shown. The processor 102 may also include acoprocessor (not shown) as a supplemental processing component to aidthe processor and/or memory 110.

A removable mass storage device 112 provides additional data storagecapacity for the computer system 100, and is coupled eitherbi-directionally (read/write) or uni-directionally (read only) toprocessor 102. For example, storage 112 can also includecomputer-readable media such as magnetic tape, flash memory, PC-CARDS,portable mass storage devices, holographic storage devices, and otherstorage devices. A fixed mass storage 120 can also, for example, provideadditional data storage capacity. The most common example of massstorage 120 is a hard-disk drive. Mass storage 112, 120 generally storeadditional programming instructions, data, and the like that typicallyare not in active use by the processor 102. It will be appreciated thatthe information retained within mass storage 112, 120 can beincorporated, if needed, in standard fashion as part of primary storage110, for example RAM, as virtual memory.

In addition to providing processor 102 access to storage subsystems, bus114 can be used to provide access to other subsystems and devices aswell. As shown, these can include a display monitor 118, a networkinterface 116, a keyboard 104, and a pointing device 106, as well as anauxiliary input/output device interface, a sound card, speakers, andother subsystems as needed. For example, the pointing device 106 can bea mouse, stylus, track ball, or tablet, and is useful for interactingwith a graphical user interface.

The network interface 116 allows processor 102 to be coupled to anothercomputer, computer network, or telecommunications network using anetwork connection as shown. For example, through the network interface116, the processor 102 can receive information, for example data objectsor program instructions, from another network, or output information toanother network in the course of performing method/process steps.Information, often represented as a sequence of instructions to beexecuted on a processor, can be received from and outputted to anothernetwork. An interface card or similar device and appropriate softwareimplemented by, for example executed/performed on, processor 102 can beused to connect the computer system 100 to an external network andtransfer data according to standard protocols. For example, variousprocess embodiments disclosed herein can be executed on processor 102,or can be performed across a network such as the Internet, intranetnetworks, or local area networks, in conjunction with a remote processorthat shares a portion of the processing. Throughout this specification“network” refers to any interconnection between computer componentsincluding the Internet, Ethernet, intranet, local-area network (“LAN”),home-area network (“HAN”), serial connection, parallel connection,wide-area network (“WAN”), Fibre Channel, PCI/PCI-X, AGP, VLbus, PCIExpress, Expresscard, Infiniband, ACCESS.bus, Wireless LAN, WiFi,HomePNA, Optical Fibre, G.hn, infrared network, satellite network,microwave network, cellular network, virtual private network (“VPN”),Universal Serial Bus (“USB”), FireWire, Serial ATA, 1-Wire, UNI/O, orany form of connecting homogenous, heterogeneous systems and/or groupsof systems together. Additional mass storage devices, not shown, canalso be connected to processor 102 through network interface 116.

An auxiliary I/O device interface, not shown, can be used in conjunctionwith computer system 100. The auxiliary I/O device interface can includegeneral and customized interfaces that allow the processor 102 to sendand, more typically, receive data from other devices such asmicrophones, touch-sensitive displays, transducer card readers, tapereaders, voice or handwriting recognizers, biometrics readers, cameras,portable mass storage devices, and other computers.

In addition, various embodiments disclosed herein further relate tocomputer storage products with a computer readable medium that includesprogram code for performing various computer-implemented operations. Thecomputer-readable medium is any data storage device that can store datawhich can thereafter be read by a computer system. Examples ofcomputer-readable media include, but are not limited to, all the mediamentioned above: magnetic media such as hard disks, floppy disks, andmagnetic tape; optical media such as CD-ROM disks; magneto-optical mediasuch as optical disks; and specially configured hardware devices such asapplication-specific integrated circuits (“ASIC”s), programmable logicdevices (“PLD”s), and ROM and RAM devices. Examples of program codeinclude both machine code, as produced, for example, by a compiler, orfiles containing higher level code, for example a script, that can beexecuted using an interpreter.

The computer system shown in FIG. 1 is but an example of a computersystem suitable for use with the various embodiments disclosed herein.Other computer systems suitable for such use can include additional orfewer subsystems. In addition, bus 114 is illustrative of anyinterconnection scheme serving to link the subsystems. Other computerarchitectures having different configurations of subsystems can also beutilized.

Advertising and Broadcast. FIG. 2 is a hierarchical diagram illustratingexample parties involved in the creation and placement of an ad forbroadcast. A national Advertiser 202 has one or more products, services,and/or messages as advertising on broadcast media. Advertiser 202retains an ad agency 204 to develop the ad campaign. For the purposes ofthis specification the ad campaign may be a national campaign or aregional campaign. An ad campaign may include one or more Request ForProposal (“RFP”) specifications. An RFP specification may includetargeting information, including demographics, markets, marketcharacteristics, weeks, and periods of each week. An RFP specificationmay also include sizing specifications, including a flexible combinationof budget limit, impressions goal, or impressions per price ratelimiters. Impressions and/or impacts are a measure of the audience of astation when an ad is broadcast, and are statistically determined bycompanies such as Arbitron/Nielsen via diary or automated listeners, forexample by the hour. An RFP may request impressions in terms of GrossRatings Points (“GRP”s) in a specific demographic wherein 1 GRP is 1% ofthe national population within the specific demographic. For example ifan ad campaign requests 2 GRPs for women aged 18-45, and it isdetermined that 65 million women are aged 18-45 nationally, then the adcampaign requests 2% of 65 million or 1.3 million impressions withinthat demographic.

The ad campaign also comprises one or more ad-creative assets, forexample audio creative suitable for a radio ad, video creative suitablefor television, and online creative suitable for internet distribution.In some embodiments, advertiser 202 comprises an internal ad agency team204 within the same corporation.

Ad agency 204 then retains an ad network 206 for publication and/ordistribution of the ad campaign. An ad network 206 manages a portion ofthe placement spots available on multiple broadcast stations 210. Eachbroadcast station 210 may be independent of the ad network 206 or may bepart of the ad network 206. The ad network 206′s inventory is thecollection of placement spots available on the broadcast media of eachbroadcast station 210. As will be further elaborated, each spotcomprises a position, for example a day of week and/or a daypart (forexample, ‘AM Drivetime’, ‘lunch’, ‘PM Drivetime’, or ‘evening’). Adnetwork 206's inventory may be acquired based on direct affiliation withspecific broadcast stations 210 and/or may be acquired based onaffiliation with station groups 208 comprising multiple broadcaststations 210.

The Ad Network. Radio stations typically have relatively fixed adbreaks, typically twice per hour. A full break might be 5 minutes long,with 4 minutes of advertising. Stations 210 attempt to fill most of eachad break with local advertisers as these tend to pay substantially moreto the station 210 than national-product advertising by advertisers 202.However, stations 210 usually do not have enough demand to fully fillthe ad-placement spots they have. These ad spots are thus called astation's inventory. The station 210 will thus contract out a portion oftheir inventory to an ad network 206. The ad network 206 mediatesbetween a large group of stations 208, 210 and national advertisers 202.An ad network 206 may be necessary because the logistical overhead ofadvertisers 202 interacting directly with stations 210 would beprohibitive for both stations 210 and advertisers 202.

Station Inventory. FIG. 3A is an illustration depicting radio broadcastdayparts. In a radio embodiment, the station 210 typically provides thead network 206 with inventory for each week, for example twenty-eightpieces of inventory. Each of the seven days of the week has an inventoryfor four typical dayparts: AM Drive (referring to the morning drive timeto work for commuters), Midday, PM Drive (also known as afternoon drivetime), and Evening. An inventory is specified by giving the part of theweek it covers called a “daypart” 302, the number of ad breaks itcontains and the seconds duration each break is to last.

For example, an inventory might cover the “Monday 5 a-10 a” daypart(referring to 5 am to 10 am on Monday), and contain two 60-secondbreaks. This would indicate that the station agrees to play one minuteof the network's ad content (an “ad break” from the network'sperspective) at two points during the daypart Monday 5 a-10 a. However,the station 210 does not explicitly state when they will play thebreaks, only that they will not play them too close together, forexample within 25 minutes of each other. The coarseness of the contractallows the station 210 to retain some flexibility with where it placesits network ads, while still allowing the network 206 to placeadvertisers' ads into the part of the day they desire.

Dynamic Station Inventory. FIG. 3B are illustrations depicting dynamicinventory. Dynamic inventory refers to an inventory/supply that maychange over time as third party ad network 210, for example ones usingtraditional placement, remove or put back inventory into a totalinventory.

In one embodiment, a “meets in the middle” dynamic inventory is used: athird-party ad network and/or station group has a total stationinventory/station group inventory 350 that it makes completely availableto an ad network 210 using disclosed techniques for advertisingplacement. The third-party ad network and/or station group placements354 reduce total inventory 350 just as the ad network 210 placements 356reduce total inventory. In this embodiment little or no ads are reservedat the beginning of a placement cycle to the third-party ad networkand/or station group. At a point, for example two weeks before abroadcast time, the remaining inventory available to the ad network 352is split between the two groups to “meet in the middle” whether themiddle refers to a straight 50% split of total inventory 350, remaininginventory 352, or any other threshold/dynamically calculated multiplebesides 50%.

In an alternate embodiment, a “relaxing” dynamic inventory is used: athird-party ad network and/or station group has a total stationinventory/station group inventory 370 that it makes a percentageavailable 372 to an ad network 210 using disclosed techniques foradvertising placement. The remaining percentage is not made available toad network 210 in an effort for internal/other sales. At a period of“relaxing”, for example two weeks before a broadcast time, the remaininginventory 374 not consumed by placements is released to the ad network210 and may be split between the two groups using a similar split as the“meets in the middle” dynamic inventory.

A Single Campaign. A broadcast network 206 may represent inventory fromhundreds or thousands of stations 210. When an advertiser 202 approachesthem about running an ad campaign, the advertiser 202 may specifydirectly or indirectly what demographic, for example Women 18-49 orw18-49, and daypart they would like to play in and how many impressionsthey would like to get. The advertiser may specify a wide daypart suchas Monday-Friday 5 a-10 a; that is, a daypart does not need to be on asingle day. The daypart can also be complex, specifying several parts ofthe week: “Monday-Friday 5 a-10 a; Monday-Friday 3 p-8 p”. The network206 then determines how large a campaign they can sell the advertiser202 and presents the plan to them as a proposal. If the advertiserapproves, the plan becomes booked.

In one embodiment, a campaign plan moves between four business-processstates: saved, proposed, reserved, and booked:

-   -   Saved—When the ad network 206 has formed a plan but has not yet        presented it to an advertiser 202 for their approval, the plan        is “saved”. Because a saved plan has not been externally        published yet, the network 206 is typically free to alter it as        much as they want.    -   Proposed—Once the ad network 206 presents a plan to an        advertiser 202 for their approval, the plan is “proposed”.        Proposing the plan means that the network 206 gives up much of        its flexibility to alter the plan going forward. However, as the        plan has not yet been committed to by the advertiser 202, the        network 206 does not reserve the inventory the plan uses.    -   Reserved—Often times, the network 206 has reason to be confident        that an advertiser 202 is likely to approve a plan, or at least,        a plan very similar to it. In that case, the network 206 can go        ahead and reserve the inventory while they wait for approval to        be sure that no other plans end up taking those inventory spots.    -   Booked—Once the advertiser 202 has committed to a plan, it is        booked, which means that the plan, in addition to reserving        certain spots, is approved to actually play as well.

Typically, when a broadcast station 210 fills up their advertising spotswith ad-campaign placements, they quickly run out of space and may notfit additional campaigns into the fragmented bits of inventoryremaining. The fragmented bits that remain may not be used because eachadvertiser 202 prefers to have their campaign to play a substantialamount within specific dayparts. This station 210 level fragmentationloss affects the stations' 210 overall inventory, not just the inventorythey have given to ad networks 206, and constitutes one major source oflost value.

By analogy, imagine that a restaurant only received parties of ten totwenty people. Additionally, each party was specific about which partsof the restaurant they were willing to sit in. After a few large partiesare seated, the remaining seats will be a patchwork that may not fit anyadditional parties.

The situation may be worsened for the ad network 206, which representshundreds to thousands of stations 210. The ad network 206 may attempt tosolve an analogous fragmentation puzzle involving the inventory slicesfrom each of its affiliated stations 210. The ad network 206's inventorythus is often 20% to 30% unsold simply because the inventory has beenfragmented into an incoherent jumble. When inventory goes unsold, thebroadcast media is filled with lower performing filler such asnon-profit and/or government messages such as public serviceannouncements that do not contribute substantively towards the station210, station group 208, and/or network 206.

Currently, ad distribution and delivery in the broadcast industry is“pen and paper” or manually performed, due at least in part to anentrenched history of how it has been done, and due to the heterogeneityof broadcast stations throughout a country. The technologies, process,culture, and business concerns of stations may vary dramatically,necessitating a lowest-common-denominator approach where hundreds ofpeople at the ad network 206 directly interact, via phone or email, withseveral people at each of the hundreds or thousands of stations 210 thatare in the network.

Typically, there is also little to no feedback loop on how well thingswere actually delivered. As a practical measure, agencies 206 andstations 208, 210 have a “don't ask, don't tell” policy when it comes todelivery problems, despite there being perhaps 20% to 30% under-deliverydue to various problems. Examples of delivery problems are the wrong adplayed, played at wrong time, or played next to a competitor's ad, orthe ad was not played, played too poorly, or played when thebroadcasting tower was broken, and so on.

With the complexity of matchmaking exceeding the practical limits of amanual pen-and-paper method, networks 206 typically cope by requiringthat advertisers 202 buy a homogenized slice and/or bundle, called a“network minute”, across all the stations 210 in their network 206. Inthis way, the inventory does not get broken up and things do not getcomplicated. While this does reduce complexity, it adds inefficiency.The advertiser 202 gets little say in who they target (for example,which stations 210) or when they play (for example, which daypart).Thus, using network minute delivery is completely unoptimized to whatthe advertiser 202 truly would want. As a result, the delivery iscorrespondingly less valuable to advertiser 202. This in turn lowersadvertiser 202 demand, which may lead to waste inventory the network 206again may not fully sell their inventory. Note that this potential lossdue to unsold inventory is a loss in addition to poor matchup due tonetwork-minute selling. That is, because there is no attempt to matchthe inventory to the detailed desires of the advertiser 202, the totalvalue delivered by the inventory is substantially less than what itcould be.

Typically, there are further complications. For example, ads that areplaced in the same break may be compatible with each other. For example,two soft drink products from competing brands may not be in the samebreak. Some advertisers 202 do not want to share a break with what theyconsider to be a controversial product. Finally, some advertisers 202 donot want to be placed in what they consider to be controversial stationsor controversial programs/hosts.

Typically, ad campaigns that last less than a week are rare. Usuallythey last for several weeks and end up competing for space used by othercampaigns, which themselves may extend into a different set of weeks,stations, and dayparts.

Over the course of many months leading up to a particular week, thenetwork 206 progressively learns about each campaign that would like toinclude that week in their plans. For each potential campaign, they mayfirst form a proposed campaign plan to present to the advertiser 202.Typically, it may be many weeks before the advertiser 202 commits to theplan. Advertisers 202 often wait to commit until just a week or twobefore the go-live time, when the week in question starts.

A common issue is answering what the network 206 does with the inventoryspots they assigned to the proposed campaign plan before the advertiser202 commits. If the station 210 reserves that inventory for theadvertiser 202, then they may not assign it to other campaigns.Acceptance rates are often as low as 30%, and that means opportunitiesmay be missed. If the network 206 does not reserve a proposed plan'sinventory, then other campaigns can be accommodated more flexibly.However, conflicts may occur if two plans eventually try to reserve/booksome of the same inventory spots. In fact, if the network 206 does notreserve the inventory, then it is almost guaranteed that by the time theadvertiser 202 commits, the network 206 will have to present a slightlyrevised plan to the advertiser 202 since some of the original plan willbe “damaged” by other plans from other advertisers and must be “healed”.

Healing is a process of repairing damaged plans by selecting alternativebut equivalent placements. Automatic healing may be an important featureto support a frictionless workflow process for a fluctuating inventorypool. Possible use cases include using healing to mitigate inventorychanges and/or mitigate lost competition with another plan. Anchoredre-planning is a process of creating new plan revisions. Possible usecases include responding to change requests from a buyer, mitigatinginventory changes, and/or mitigate lost competition with another plan.Anchored re-planning has at least three modes: a rigid mode allowingonly decrements; a rigid mode within a spot's original station, week,and daypart—to allow an incremental spot count; and a “prefer” mode thatprefers the original station, week, and daypart—to allow incrementalstations.

Traditional Methods. The need to allocate ad plays into a 210 station'sinventory spots has been around almost as long as radio has. Asmentioned earlier, even today this is almost always done “byhand”/manually, with a highly experienced person determining withpen-and-paper/simple spreadsheets where they can place allocations for anew campaign. A problem is that each campaign has specific and differingplacement and sizing requirements from the next campaign. The result isthat the campaigns form a patchwork on the 210 stations' inventory thatbreaks up the inventory into unusable remnants. As mentioned before, insome cases this can lead to 20% to 30% of a 210 station's inventorygoing unfilled by paying advertisers 202 each week.

Broadcast vs Online Media. Generic scheduling/allocation systems orad-delivery processes used in mediums other than broadcast are not thesame as the broadcast inventory-fill problem. There are several uniquecharacteristics of the broadcast ad distribution problem. In onlinemedia (for example browser/websites and/or phone apps), ads are directedat individual people with known demographics. By contrast in broadcast,an ad reaches thousands of people simultaneously (usually publically),creating a demographic pattern of impressions. In online media, theupcoming amount of impressions is not guaranteed because one may not becertain of how many people of each demographic will visit a website orsmart-phone app. By contrast in broadcast, the number of impressions iseffectively guaranteed because the industry has settled on officialestimates of listenership based off of sampling polls.

Sidecar Appliance. FIG. 4A is a block diagram illustrating a traditionalbroadcast system. The system of FIG. 4A may be at a station 210. In theexample shown, 402 is a programming server. Throughout thisspecification, “programming” refers to core content of the broadcaststation, usually content that is more valuable for broadcast consumers,for example listeners or viewers of the broadcast. Throughout thisspecification, “server” refers without loss of generality to either aninternal or external system/platform and may be implemented in softwareand/or hardware. Thus, a utility server 408 and station play out system404 may be housed within a single computer as shown in FIG. 1.

A programming server typically has access to pre-recorded or liveprogramming content to be interleaved with traffic and/or ad content.Programming server 402 is coupled with a utility server 408 via programlogs, which are generally human-readable files, for example text files,that indicate log book and/or timing details for “carts”, which arecartridges and/or unique identifiers for specific creative pieces,including programming, commercials, weather, news, top-of-the-hourannouncements, and other programming. For example cart COM-2537 may be a30-second advertisement for a national home-improvement store with a 10%promotion. Program logs contain information on carts like PRO-1024 whichmay be a Top 40 popular song that happens to take three minutes andfifty-one seconds. The program logs may also store information for discjockeys (DJs) such as artist, title, track, rotation, and triviainformation about the cart.

Similarly, traffic server 406 provides traffic content. Throughout thisspecification “traffic” content refers to content other thanprogramming, for example traffic reports, weather reports, local news,FCC mandated spots, such as top-of-the-hour, and local/network/nationalad spots. Traffic server 406 is coupled to utility server 408 viatraffic logs. Traffic logs contain information on carts like the exampleof COM-2537 above, or WEA-1100 which may have the eleven o'clock weatherreport for forty-five seconds.

Utility server 408 provides a merge and/or continuity function to formfinal logs that are the program logs from programming server 402 andtraffic logs from traffic server 406 merged for final play out. Thefinal logs are submitted to station play out system 404, also known as aprimary play out system, or an automation system. Without loss ofgenerality, the automation system may include both utility server 408and play out system 404. The play out system has an audio codec and thecapability to directly push content to broadcast.

Typically logs, based on schedulers' log books, are generated a dayprior to a broadcast airing and have a predetermined schedule oftriggering traffic via the play out systems 404 and 408. This is anissue in that logs are static by being generated so early, and thataudio copy may not be changed in real time.

FIG. 4B is a block diagram illustrating an example of asidecar-appliance broadcast system. The system of FIG. 4B may be at astation 210 affiliated with ad network 206. The sidecar appliancepermits ad network 206 to trigger and play spots at station 210 in realtime. In the example shown, similar to FIG. 4A, programming server 402is coupled with station play out system 404 via utility server 408 whichis coupled with mixer 410. One traffic server 452 providing, forexample, commercial breaks, traffic, and weather reports, is alsocoupled with station play out system 404 via utility server 408 toprovide some but not all of the traffic content for broadcast, and itleaves room for another traffic server using “break” logs. Anothertraffic server, also known as an ad server 454, is coupled with anothersecond play out system 456. In one embodiment, the ad server 454 is acloud based platform, wherein cloud refers to cloud computing. Cloudcomputing refers without loss of generality to the practice of using oneor more remote servers hosted on a computer network, for example theInternet, rather than only using local servers and/or local personalcomputers. Although traffic server 454 is depicted as an ad server,without loss of generality the same in-band trigger techniques may beused for non-advertising content. Because sidecar play out system 456has its own audio codec, and ad server 454 may be cloud computing basedincluding associated with the internet, it provides a way for mediacreative to be loaded and scheduled in real time to be merged with theday-old programming logs of a traditional broadcast.

Furthermore, because sidecar play out system 456 can listen to in-bandprogram audio, it can provide real time compliance data to a cloudplatform, for example ad server 454. This allows an advertiser 202 or adagency 204, to verify a creative spot was played in full, what time itwas played, when it was played in the logs (for example what program wasplayed prior to the creative spot being played), and the frequency itwas played. Sidecar play out system 456 does not need to have anauxiliary network for triggering but may rather directly monitor theoutput of mixer 410, in-band. When sidecar play out system 456 detectsand decodes an in-band trigger, it directly plays content based oninstructions and audio copy from ad scheduling server 454 to mixer 410and out to broadcast.

Improving on the manual process with the sidecar appliance. Thus in oneembodiment, a real-time media-delivery sidecar appliance 456 isinstalled in over a hundred broadcast stations 210. Each broadcaststation 210 may then be affiliated with one or more ad networks 206.This allows delivery of a selected ad to the right spot directly intothe radio/television broadcast station's broadcast stream at nearly anydesired time. Thus, serving ads from the appliance computer permits anear immediate reactiveness to desired additions, changes, and removalsin ad campaigns. This level of proactiveness/reactiveness is not at allpractical in the “by hand”/manual approach.

That is, even if a network had an army of people transferring existingplacements to attempt to fully fill their network, the complexity mayboggle the army of people. The constant stream of ad-placement changeswould have to be communicated to independent people at hundreds orthousands of radio stations; and not only would these people reject theidea of constantly making adjusts, they would not be able to do soreliably. This hypothetical situation is further exacerbated by the factthat a week's inventory is at its worst gridlock just before the week'sgo-live time.

Thus, the sidecar appliance 456 allows a fresh solution for theinventory-fill problem at a detailed level that only an automatedsystem/computer can handle, rather than with the traditionalbroad-stroked methods that a person or persons can realistically applymanually. By computerizing the process, a new tool is forged todynamically place campaigns' ads in a systemic way that concurrentlyexplores all options and select the best one. The advertising placementsystem is thus a new problem space for broadcast inventory.

Context in Radio Embodiment. To reiterate, ad networks (206) standbetween a large group of radio stations (210) and national advertisers(202). Stations (210) contract out to the ad network (206) some of thespace/spots they have available to place ads in, their “inventory”.Advertisers (202) and/or their ad agencies (204) approach the ad network(206) asking for their products' ads to play many times across the adnetwork's stations (210), a “campaign”. Planning that campaign requiresconsidering the needs and desires of all three parties: stations (210),ad network (206), and advertiser (202). The planning software mustoptimize those needs and desires, and where necessary, compromisebetween them in a balanced way:

The station (210) and ad network (206) want to fully fill the inventory;

The ad network (206) and advertisers (202) want optimized return oninvestment (“ROI”) from their campaigns; and

Inventory and campaign delivery/success are measured in terms ofimpressions.

Impressions are the estimated number of people hearing the ad, given aparticular demographic, such as “Men 25-49” or m25-49, “Women 18-24” orw18-24, both of which are subsets of the global demographic “Persons 12and up”, or p12+. One major third-party company providing thesemeasurements is Arbitron, which is currently a part of Nielsen. Stations(210) are typically paid based on the estimated number of listeners in ageneric demographic, such as “Persons 18-49” or p18-49. Advertisers(202) typically pay only for the impressions within the demographic theyare interested in.

Thus, one of the major functions of an ad network (206) is to place anadvertiser's campaign into the stations (210) at parts of the week thatare best matched for the campaign's demographic. In other words, thenetwork should optimize what is termed “demo-match” or “demo-matchup”.

More sophisticated traditional ad networks may split their ad network(206) into many sub-networks. For example, they may split their networkinto stations (210) with mostly-male and mostly-female listenership.Some portion of their total inventory is then sold in this more detailedway. This is still not optimal however, because even amongst themostly-female stations, only a minority of those stations may have gooddemo-match with “Female 18-25”. Moreover, pre-splitting inventory intosub-networks comes with the risk that the corresponding sub-networkswon't be sold at the same rate, leaving wasted inventory behind.

Embodiment of Dynamic Lineups. Dynamic lineups are disclosed. In oneembodiment, when planning a campaign, each inventory's impressions aremeasured according to the demographic and daypart of the campaign. Thismeasure is termed the “in-demo impressions”, or simply “demoimpressions”.

In one embodiment, a metric called ‘price efficiency’ is used todetermine ad placement, wherein price efficiency is a ratio of totalin-demo impressions per total cost. Maximizing price efficiency alone,however, may yield placement anomalies, for example undercharging earlyplacements, overcharging late placements, evening/weekend daypartemphasis, and imbalance.

In one embodiment, the demo impressions are then compared against theoverall-demographic impressions, or just “overall impressions”, tocalculate the demographic matchup, the “demo-match”. The plan is thenformed, one ad placement at a time, starting with the inventories thathave the highest demo-match. One ad is added at a time because, as theplan is formed, many other criteria are being measured, some examples ofwhich are listed below. A “Judge” is a term for a system which makes thedetermination in a price efficiency based placement system and/or ademo-match based placement system.

Balancers, distributors, and biasers are used to redistribute priceefficiency based placement and/or demo-match based placement. Theseadditional techniques/metrics are combined with the demo-match metric toform an overall fitness metric. The placement with the highest compositefitness is picked.

Some examples of these redistributors include:

market & station distribution—generally, advertisers want their campaignto play in as many markets as possible. For example, as one marketbecomes more saturated, an additional bias is to keep other marketsequally saturated;

inventory rationing—encourages planning to pick stations/markets whichhave more unused inventory left instead of ones that have littleinventory left;

index-impact adjustments—when a plan selects less popular inventory, itimproves the overall quality (sometimes termed “index” in radio) of theremaining inventory. The reverse is true as well. This metric accountsfor the impact that a placement will have on the index. It can be usedto both shape how the plan ends up and/or to adjust the final price ofthe plan to the agency;

daypart distributor—using a “remnant prorated” method of calculatingremnant inventory for a plurality of relevant regions for a campaign,and prorating what is being put into each of the regions, based on thetotal remnant inventory each region has; and

daypart percentage annealing—when a planner selects percentages theyprefer in each given region, the sequential process of selectingplacements in each region will not result in the selected percentagesafter each selection, requiring an “annealing” process to grant adynamic tolerance to avoid the selector from “seizing” at not being ableto optimize to the selected percentages; and/or

top station biaser—a planner may know in advance that certain stationsare of interest to an advertiser regardless of data or quantitativeanalysis, for example a top station. A biaser may bias a campaign toallow the top station to be placed more often.

FIG. 5 is an illustration of remnant proration for a daypartdistributor. Three regions are depicted, Region 1 (502), Region 2 (504),and Region (506), shown with a respective total inventory (512), (514),(516), and then a respective remnant inventory (522), (524), (526).

The term ‘region’ generally refers to a combination of space and time,for example a collection of selected market(s) and/or station(s) 210 andselected week(s) and/or daypart(s) 302. Price may stay the same within aregion or between regions, such that without a daypart distributor aJudge may select only one region for placement, say Region 1 (502).

With remnant proration, the percentage of overall remnant available; forexample in FIG. 5 10% in Region 1 (522), 80% in Region 2 (524), and 30%in Region 3 (516), is used to prorate what is put into each region,price being equal. Thus with a daypart distributor the Judge wouldselect roughly 10/120 placement in Region 1, 80/120 placement in Region2, and 30/120 in Region 3. An advantage of a daypart distributor is thatit minimizes network fragmentation.

A key issue addressed by the disclosed is that each criteria seemsqualitatively different from the rest, meaning there is no apparentlynatural way to combine them. In one embodiment, transforming andnormalizing each metric into financial terms permits combining them in acontinuously balanced way into a single fitness metric. This is key toavoiding complex, and often arbitrary, decision logic where “gray zones”are not properly balanced. A common issue with traditional methods,which are often non-mathematically balanced systems, is that they mayseem good locally but when combined together they clash and areineffective.

One example of how the demo-match metric alone might be used to pick onestation over another: Consider a campaign that wants the w18-24 demoduring the Monday-Friday 5 a-8 p daypart. Station X gets 1000impressions per play in that demo and daypart, while getting 2000impressions in the overall demo, p12+, in the same daypart. Thus, thedemo-match is 1000/2000, or 50%. Station Y, on the other hand, gets 600demo impressions per play and 900 overall impressions. Thus, Station Y′sdemo-match is 600/900, or 67%. The result is the demo-match algorithmweighs towards picking Station Y instead of Station X, and thus placingthe campaign in Station Y is a 34% more efficient use of the inventory.

This level of detailed calculation may be leveraged with automatedcomputer, and/or the complexity and customization that results can bereliably and inexpensively delivered via a direct-to-air appliance andcloud computing infrastructure. Traditional networks typically justallocate a fixed slice of their network's inventory to the campaignregardless of the demo match in each station and daypart.

Dynamic Lineups. A “lineup” is an industry term referring to plays of acampaign that will happen in a given station in a given week. Asdescribed above, traditionally a lineup is governed at least in part bya manual and static placement of ads in inventory.

By contrast, lineups and placement as disclosed are “dynamic” in atleast two different ways: 1) an initial placement of a campaign isdynamic using the overall fitness metric as described above; and 2) thecampaign may be reoptimized/adapted dynamically after initial placementover the lifetime of the campaign with changes in region/demographicplacement to react to changes of supply and changes of demand, forexample inventory changes, campaign changes, and other new campaigns.Inventory changes may occur for example when a station has equipmentfailure. The campaign may change, for example, from feedback from acampaign, in some cases programmatically, to increase an ROI foradvertiser 202. In one embodiments, a campaign runs during a week alonga campaign period of six months to twelve months.

With adaptive planning, a planning algorithm may assume reservedinventory as guaranteed, but remain flexible within its ordered buyspecifications. Adaptive/dynamic planning thus allows optimization ofyield by reallocating existing placements to achieve higher fill rate ormore efficient use of inventory. For example, an AM drive might yieldmore impressions for a later plan called Plan B: Plan A for Mo-Fr 6 a-tpreserved 30 spots evenly spread out (2 per day and AM/Mid/PM), whereasPlan B for Mo-We 6 a-10 a may force a reallocation of some spots of PlanA from AM into PM.

Benefits. In one embodiment, customized “demo match” greatly expands theeffective inventory available to an ad network. Stations are picked withthe highest demo match for the campaign, leaving the lower demo-matchstations and dayparts aside to be used by other campaigns whose desireddemographic matches them. In some cases, the standard pricing in theindustry allows perhaps a 10% margin for the network despite theinefficiency of their current practices. In one embodiment, computerizeddemo matching and campaign scaling allows the network to scheduleperhaps 50% more advertising into a week. Since the cost to the networkis relatively fixed, the network's margin would increase by 6 times inthis hypothetical example.

Demo matching also benefits the business because advertisers prefer whentheir ads play on stations that naturally attract their targeteddemographic.

FIG. 6 is an illustration of a flow chart for a dynamic advertisingplacement. In step 602, inventory data is stored, wherein the inventorydata represents for each of a plurality of broadcast stations 210 acorresponding inventory of audio advertising spots available from thatbroadcast station 210 to be filled by an advertising placement system.In one embodiment the advertising placement system is run at aprogrammatic ad network 206 as shown in FIG. 2.

In step 604, an advertising campaign data is received from advertiser202 and/or ad agency 204, wherein the advertising campaign datarepresents a set of advertising objectives of an advertising campaign.

In step 606, the inventory data is used to iteratively selectadvertising spots to be associated with the advertising campaign, basedat least in part on a respective computed fitness of match between eachselected advertising spot and said advertising objectives. In oneembodiment the computed fitness of match comprises a primary metriccomprising at least one of a demo-match metric and a price efficiencymetric. In one embodiment, the computed fitness of match comprises theprimary metric and a secondary metrics. In one embodiment, a secondarymetric is transformed to a normalized value, for example a valuenormalized into financial terms such as price, cost, ROI, and so on. Inone embodiment, a normalization strategy includes normalizing them allinto financial terms so they can be combined together in a meaningfulway to get the overall fitness. In one embodiment, the price efficiencymetric is evaluated by efficiency in demo impressions for a given amountof money. In one embodiment, being evaluated by efficiency alsocomprises a bias to achieve a daypart distribution, for example the biasis remnant prorated. In one embodiment, being evaluated by efficiencyalso comprises an overall fitness including price efficiency and regiondistribution fitness.

In an additional step (not shown in FIG. 6) advertising spots aredynamically re-selected to be associated with the advertising campaignbased at least in part on one or more of the following: a change ininventory and/or a subsequently processed campaign; recomputing therespective computed fitness of match, including at least one of:recomputing aggregated fitness and recomputing overall fitness; and toattain a same or equivalent fitness of match.

In an additional step (not shown in FIG. 6) the advertising campaign isglobally optimized with a second advertising campaign. Such a globallyoptimization comprises at least one of: optimizing at least one of asupply side and a demand side across both advertising campaigns;achieving objectives of both advertising campaigns collectively with amaximum fill of ad spots; and/or achieving objectives of bothadvertising campaigns collectively with a maximum ROI to the pluralityof broadcast stations.

As described above, the technique in FIG. 6 may be carried out by acomputer as shown in FIG. 1 coupled by a network connection to aplurality of sidecar appliances 456 in each of the plurality ofbroadcast stations 210.

FIG. 7 is an illustration of a flow chart for selection of advertisingspots. In one embodiment, the process of FIG. 7 is part of step 606 inFIG. 6.

In steps 702 and 704, a region distribution for a campaign is receivedalong with its corresponding price data. In step 706, a primary metricis determined for the campaign using a judge. A judge measures at leastone fitness component. In one embodiment, a programmatic analysis of thecampaign and/or user preferences determines whether the primary metricis price efficiency or demo-match. Price data may include CPM (cost perthousand impressions), payout AQH (average quarter-hour persons), and/orspot price. In steps 702 and 704, other determinants in inventory mayalso be input, including break length, break counts and:

Base input:

a. inventory pool selection

b. advertiser

Exclusions input:

a. market

b. format

c. station

d. other tags (e.g. controversial)

Ratings

a. data set (e.g. Nielsen book)

b. demographic

Multi config

a. flight weeks

b. dayparts

c. spot length

d. reach goal (Impressions or GRPS)

e. rate limit (CPM or CPP)

f. budget limit

g. target weighting for markets, formats, stations, station ranks,

h. demographics, household (income, size, education, children), flightweeks

In step 708, balancers, distributors, and/or biasers are selected if anyto affect failings or other challenges in using the primary metric alonefor a campaign. In one embodiment, one or more judges are used, eachmeasuring a fitness component. In one embodiment, balancers are elementsthat try to even out or balance different aspects of placement;distributors are elements that allow proration or redistributeplacement; and biasers are elements that intentionally skew placementfor quantitative or qualitative rationale. In one embodiment thebalancers, distributors, and/or biasers are selected programmaticallybased on the campaign and/or user preferences.

In step 710, the primary metric and any balancers, distributors and/orbiases are combined to compute a fitness of match. Combination may be aweighted function, for example a weighted sum of the normalized factors.Normalization to financial terms may be performed to provide acontinuously balanced way to a single fitness metric. In one embodiment,there are multiple judges whose fitness calculations are combined togive the overall fitness in a selection phase. Once the overall fitnessfor each open spot is calculated, the best one is selected and then theoverall fitnesses are recalculated again, for example for the newmatches given of occupied spots.

In step 712, a selection phase is used to select the next inventory spotusing the combined fitness of match metric.

In one embodiment, plan pricing includes the “natural price” of a planas the sum of prices of its placements. The “proposal price” of a planis the natural price adjusted by index factors that represent poolfragmentation:

${{Price}\; ({plan})} = {\left\lbrack {\sum_{placement}{{Price}({placement})}} \right\rbrack \times {\prod_{index}{{factor}_{index}\frac{{index}({plan})}{{index}({pool})}}}}$

Index factors may be freely defined and may represent resources thatpositively impact pricing of the inventory pool, for example Top-10markets, Top-5 stations. In one embodiment, there are different pricingoptions. The first is “cost based pricing” to support elastic pricing toachieve target margins based on a variable inventory cost structure. Theprice for an individual placement may be a function of the inventorycost multiplied with the configured target margin:

Price(placement)=[1+margin(tier, week, daypart)]×Cost(placement)

Thus, more expensive inventory in a pool may automatically increase planprices and vice versa; changes to the effective pricing may beautomatic.

A second may be “normalized impression-based pricing” to supportcontrolled pricing for a buyer decoupled from cost structure. The priceof an individual placement may be a function of its normalizedimpression multiplied with a configured eCPM (effective CPM):

${{Price}({placement})} = {{{eCPM}\left( {{tier},{week},{daypart}} \right)} \times \frac{{Imps}_{normalize}({placement})}{1000}}$

Target margins may be managed externally. Thus buyers may experiencestable pricing, and changes to the effective pricing may become a yieldmanagement function.

For both pricing options, yield management has fine control over pricingthrough for example a three-dimensional matrix:

a. Cost-based option: Target margin per (tier×week×daypart)

b. Normalized impression-based option: eCPM per (tier×week×daypart)

Summary. Matching campaigns to stations is one of the primary jobs, ifnot the primary job, of an ad network. However, because of the manualnature of traditional matching, the prevailing standard among adnetworks is to simply sell “network minutes”, meaning that an advertiseris only allowed to buy an even slice and/or bundle across the entirenetwork, with no station or daypart customization done to match thedesired demographic or other goals of the advertiser.

Despite its drawbacks, the network-minute model prevails simply becauseit requires substantially more effort to process in a more sophisticatedway. Much more sophistication, and the process is beyond what a humanbeing, and especially a huge distributed network of human beings, canreliably calculate or execute manually.

Thus, the algorithms disclosed are developed to support processes neededto produce completely detailed customization of campaign plans across afull ad network of hundreds to thousands of stations. Moreover, theprocesses developed herein are not simply a scaling up of the moreholistic, intuitive reasoning that a human being might apply to theproblem; instead, the processes disclosed are logically sound andtailored to the procedural and concurrent nature of computers.

Ad Exchange on Ad Server. There traditionally is no ad exchange, whereinan “ad exchange” is defined throughout this specification as a spacecomprising demand and supply participants, traditionally available thatis integrated and running on top of a real time ad server platform forlinear broadcast, including linear broadcast radio or linear broadcasttelevision. A linear broadcast ad server and/or enabling inventory to bedynamically supplied to exchange buyers to purchase is disclosed. Theterm “dynamically supplying” refers to supplying last minute and/ornon-last minute inventory, freely changing the amount of inventory,freely changing the break lengths, and so on. In one embodiment, evenpre-purchase and/or non-guaranteed inventory is supplied if it becomesavailable. In one embodiment the creative to run on broadcast may besupplied seconds and/or minutes after an order. In one embodiment highcompliance is accounted for. In one embodiment, real time reporting, andreal time invoicing are made available.

Inventory is allowed to be submitted to an ad exchange via a variety ofmethods that permit automation, including without limitation:application programming interfaces (“APIs”), applications, and directinterfaces. Buyers are allowed to purchase available inventory via avariety of methods that permit automation, including without limitation:APIs and direct buying interfaces. Proposals are createdprogrammatically to buyers using buyer and seller rules and criteria.Once an order is placed, the campaign may run on all stations (via anappliance ad server) according to the specifications, creative,instructions, and so on.

When spots play out of the appliance ad server, the appliance reportsthe playtime and automatically confirms the spot play in lieu oftraditional manual station affidavits or proof-of-performance reports.Campaign performance is provided to agencies and advertisers in realtime, which also improves the efficiency of billing. Importantly, aprogrammatic exchange running on top of a cloud based, real time, adserver, enables efficiencies that are not possible manually using thetraditional methods of using many people, disparate systems, and/orantiquated manual processes. With data, processing algorithms, and theability to analyze, optimize, and re-plan every proposal/plan as newproposals/plans come in, value is added to all exchangeparticipants—providing fair pricing to suppliers and buyers alike.Another strength over traditional exchanges is the disclosed exchangemay work for many or a majority of all media groups.

In one embodiment, the ad exchange on ad server gets remunerated basedat least in part on delivery of spots and SaaS/PaaS (Software as aService/Platform as a Service) types of fees based on access to theexchange. Such a system is significant because of: a) the real timenature of the exchange; b) the benefits to both buyers and sellers; c)the assurance of buyer specifications, compliance, and control of copy;and d) the fact that traditionally is no industry wide ad exchangeavailable for linear broadcast, or linear broadcast combined withstreaming/online.

FIG. 8A and FIG. 8B are block diagrams of advertising exchange systems.

In FIG. 8A, Buyer 802 represents an advertiser 202, ad agency 204,and/or an ad network 206/station group 208 assisting an advertiser inpurchasing adspace. The Buyer 802 submits campaign planning, proposalsand/or orders with a demand side platform 804. Throughout thisspecification a platform references any programmatic user interfacewithout limitation including a web site, web portal, mobile portal,mobile app, call center and/or computer program. In one embodiment thedemand side platform may be represented as two different platforms: afirst “self service” platform for an advertiser 202 and/or ad agency 204to directly interface with, a second for a publisher 206/208 tointerface buyers through. In both cases, the demand side platform 804interfaces with ad exchange 810 using a demand side interface,comprising programmatic interfaces such as an application programminginterface (API), web service, computer protocol, and other automated andsemi-automated interface standards.

Ad exchange 810 comprises algorithms 812, for example algorithms fordynamic lineup and/or placement. Algorithms 812 also may use advancetechniques such as data targeting 814 to use first party data such asNielsen data and/or third party data such as that provided by apublisher 820 to enhance targeting with more precise demographics, andso on. Algorithms 812 also may use events processing 816 to enhancedelivery by allowing events such as weather events, political events,sports events, and so on to affect delivery and creative selection. Thead exchange 810 may be one or more of: a public ad exchange and aprivate exchange.

A private exchange 810 is associated with an inventory pool 822 that maybe affiliated with a single owned and operated group of stations 210 andsold by the sales channel of that owned and operated group of stations.The ability to purchase on a private exchange usually requires aninvitation to the agency 204 or advertiser 202. A public exchange 810 isassociated with an inventory pool 822 that is comprised of inventory bya group of stations 210 owned by multiple owners. A public exchange mayalso require an invitation to agencies 204 and advertisers 202, but insome embodiments may also be completely public and allow any buyer touse a self service demand side platform 804 to purchase inventory fromthe public exchange 810.

Publisher 832 interfaces with ad exchange 810 using an inventory managerplatform 834 to feed inventory 822 in the ad exchange 810. Publisher 832also provides input in the form of rates 836, whether the rates arebased on yield management, a rate card, or an instruction or algorithmto base rates on demand. In one embodiment, the ad exchange 810 takes aninstruction/algorithm to base rates on demand and manifests it usingalgorithms 812 to provide a dynamic and/or responsive rate. Thepublisher 832 using the inventory manager platform and inputs rates to abridge 818 on the ad exchange 810 using a supply side interface,comprising programmatic interfaces such as an API, web service, computerprotocol, and other automated and semi-automated interface standards.

A station 840 affiliated with publisher 832 comprises preexistingsystems, shown in FIG. 8 as grey blocks: traffic system 842 whichproduces logs for automation system 844, and billing 848 which invoicesto an advertiser invoice site 852 for campaigns associated with adexchange 810. The traffic system 842 interfaces with bridge 818 forgeneric inventory and orders: in one embodiment, the traffic system isgiven the number of breaks, the length of breaks (e.g. 30 s or 60 s),and an identifier to associate the order with a programmatic ad network206 that is associated with ad exchange 810.

Automation system 844 then signals breaks to sidecar appliance 846,which is coupled with the ad exchange and submits audio spots directlyfor listening. Exchange 810 using the information from sidecar appliance846 is coupled with an advertiser dashboard 862 for reporting,accounting, and QA to advertiser/buyer 802, and likewise coupled with apublisher dashboard 872 for reporting, accounting, and QA to publisher832.

FIG. 8B is similar to FIG. 8A but with a set of exchanges 880 that showsfor a buyer 802 and/or purchaser 832 the same single demand sideinterface and/or single supply side interface may be used with the setof exchanges 880, such that internally to the set of exchanges eachexchange, shown in FIG. 8B as exchange A 810 a, exchange B 810 b, and soforth, interchange information appropriately. Thus, the set of exchanges880 can manage information to permit a single buy from buyer 802 to beintegrated over a plurality of exchanges (810 a, 810 b, and so on), andlikewise on the supply side.

FIG. 9 is an illustration of a flow chart for an advertising exchangesystem. In one embodiment, the flow chart of FIG. 9 is executed in adexchange 810 in FIG. 8.

In step 902, inventory data is stored representing for each of aplurality of broadcast stations a corresponding inventory of audioadvertising spots available from that broadcast station to be filled byan advertising placement system. In one embodiment, inventory datarepresenting for each of a plurality of streaming stations acorresponding inventory of audio advertising spots available from thatstreaming station to be filled by the advertising exchange system.

In step 904, one or more sets of advertising campaign data, eachrepresenting a set of advertising objectives of an advertising campaignis received via a demand side interface. In one embodiment, the demandside interface is coupled to a plurality of broadcast advertisers.

In step 906 the inventory data is received via a supply side interface.In one embodiment, the supply side interface is coupled to a pluralityof broadcast stations. In one embodiment, the supply side interface iscoupled to a single private set of broadcast stations representing aprivate inventory data pool. In one embodiment, the supply sideinterface is coupled to a plurality of sets of broadcast stationsrepresenting a public inventory data pool. In one embodiment, the supplyside interface is coupled to a single private set of broadcast stationsrepresenting a private inventory pool. In one embodiment, the supplyside interface also has an ability for a broadcast station to reviewupcoming advertising campaigns to perform at least one of: separation,blacklisting, and charging differential pricing.

In step 908, the inventory data is used to determine for eachadvertising campaign a corresponding set of advertising spots to beassociated with that advertising campaign. In one embodiment, thedetermination is made “last minute” within two weeks before a play datefor the corresponding set of advertising spots. In one embodiment, thedetermination is made by programmatically optimizing globally across twoor more of said advertising campaigns. In one embodiment, thedetermination is programmatically based at least in part on a respectivefitness metric computed for each advertising campaign.

In one embodiment, the determination is programmatically based at leastin part on a respective fitness metric computed for each advertisingcampaign, wherein the computed fitness is demo-match. In one embodiment,the determination is programmatically based at least in part on arespective fitness metric computed for each advertising campaign,wherein the computed fitness is demo-match plus an additional metric. Inone embodiment, the determination is dynamic by making a rollingadjustment to optimize globally as another advertising campaigns isadded. In one embodiment, the determination is dynamic by making arolling adjustment to optimize globally as another advertising campaignsis added throughout a week. In one embodiment, the determination isbased at least in part on an overall optimization of an advertiser sideand a broadcast station side; the overall optimization may includechoosing an alternate plan for each advertising campaign an alternatecorresponding set of advertising spots to be associated with thatadvertising campaign in the event that a better return benefits one ormore broadcast stations given a same utility to an advertiser.

In a step not shown in FIG. 9, a plurality of sidecar appliances in eachof the plurality of broadcast stations are used, wherein the pluralityof sidecar appliances are coupled to ad exchange 810 by a networkconnection, wherein a sidecar appliance auto-generates instructions toimplement an advertising campaign.

Exchange Platform 810 in Detail.

In one embodiment, the Radio Exchange Platform 810 is an advertisingtechnology platform that enables the automated trading of broadcastaudio inventory. It may provide a robust set of features andcapabilities to operate independent inventory pools, each with a uniqueset of rules that govern the process of planning, forecasting andtransacting inventory. The configuration of each independent pool withits rules is called an Exchange. There are at least two kinds ofexchanges, Private versus Public.

Private Radio Exchange. In one embodiment, a Private Radio Exchange is aconfiguration of the Radio Exchange Platform 810 that allows oneinventory supplier 832 to control the rules that govern all programmaticbuying of the inventory 822. Availability, pricing, and packaging may befully controlled by the supplier 832, often at multiple levels, e.g.global yield management versus channel optimizations. This may includeclient-specific configurations and pre-negotiated pricing. Private RadioExchange capabilities may be licensed to suppliers 832, such asbroadcasters 210 and/or networks 208/206, who may then run their ownprivate exchanges. A supplier 832 is the principal owner of theinventory and defines the trading rules on their own exchange 810.

Public Radio Exchange. In one embodiment, a Public Radio Exchange 810 isa configuration of the Radio Exchange Platform 810 that facilitatestrading of inventory 822 between multiple suppliers 832 and multiplebuyers 802. An approved supplier 832 may flexibly publish inventory 822into the public exchange 810 with an offer. An approved buyer 802 mayacquire inventory 822 from the public exchange 810 with an order. Asupplier 832 can set price floors and content restriction for individualoffers but may or may not control large granularity pricing andpackaging. A buyer 802 may order based on targeting requirements andaudience goals but may not have visibility into or control over specificattributes; including but not limited to the actual station 210identity. In one embodiment, a programmatic ad network 206 does notnecessarily take principal ownership of the inventory traded and mayinstead charge a fee from transactions.

Buying Methods. In one embodiment, the Radio Exchange Platform 810provides at least three methods of buying; all of them programmatic innature. They vary in core characteristics: ‘Tool-supported RFP/IOProcess’ and ‘Programmatic Guaranteed’ are methods to facilitateprogrammatic buying of premium, guaranteed inventory. ‘Static Bidding,Non-Guaranteed’ is a method to facilitate programmatic buying of remnantinventory.

Tool-Supported Programmatic Static Bidding, RFP/IO Process GuaranteedNon-Guaranteed Premium and/ X X or guaranteed inventory Remnant and/or Xnon-guaranteed inventory

Buying methods for the Private Radio Exchange. In one embodiment, thePrivate Radio Exchange 810 provides two buying methods to supportpremium sales channels. Both may be guaranteed and transparent innature. The buyer 802 may review proposed orders, including theproperties (stations) and weights (impressions or play counts), beforecommitting to the order.

Tool-supported RFP/IO Process. In one embodiment, the tool supportedrequest for proposal/insertion order (RFP/IO) process utilizes theefficiencies and optimizations of the programmatic platform but stillallows human interaction and negotiations on individual buys. To allowthis interaction, the workflow may follow a more traditional RFPsubmission process:

-   -   1. Buyer 802 sends RFP with audience goals and targeting        requirements to supplier 832.    -   2. Supplier's 832 personnel creates price proposals in response        to incoming RFPs.    -   3. The Radio Exchange Platform 810 facilitates the communication        of the proposal to the buyer 802, either through direct web        access from the buyer 802 or through automatically generated        sales-supporting documents delivered via traditional methods        like email.    -   4. Buyer's 802 personnel reviews proposal and either requests        changes or approves the proposal.        -   i. If buyer 802 request changes, supplier's 832 personnel            repeats step 2.        -   ii. If the buyer 802 approves the proposal, the ad exchange            810 generates an insertion order and reserves the inventory            822.

Programmatic guaranteed. In one embodiment, a Programmatic Guaranteedprocess supports an automated, self-service buying process. The supplier832 may configure comprehensive pricing rules, rate cards/deals 834/836to manage yield, protect sales channels, and manage client-specificpre-negotiated deals. Those rules may allow buyers 802 to queryavailable inventory on a real-time and/or near-real-time basis 822 andmake orders without a direct human involvement from the supplier 832.This is termed self-service buying. The actual order is booked eitherthrough a web-based application or an API that can be integrated by3rd-party buying applications, for example demand side platforms 804.

Buying methods for the Public Radio Exchange. In one embodiment, thePublic Radio Exchange 810 provides a unified way of buying remnantinventory. The term “remnant” does not imply poor quality, but insteadrefers to a fragmented, inconsistent and variably sized pool ofinventory from multiple independent suppliers (that may in fact bepremium/ideal for certain buyers 802), published to a unifiedmarketplace 810 for purchase.

In one embodiment, the Public Radio Exchange 810 provides a marketplacewhere transactions are executed by an auction mechanism. To participatein an auction a buyer 802 enters an order with a static bid. The orderwill be considered in upcoming auctions until the order is changed orcanceled.

The Public Radio Exchange 810 does not necessary need to offer a realtime bidding (RTB) mechanism. RTB requires the Exchange 810 to querydistinct bids from registered buyers 802 for every unit of auctionedinventory 822 at the time of the auction, for example near real time.This may be an inconvenience for buyers 802 of audio advertising.

Static bidding, non-guaranteed. In one embodiment, characteristics for astatic bidding, non-guaranteed process on the Radio Exchange Platform810 comprise:

-   -   1. Suppliers 832 create offers of inventory into the public        exchange. With each offer, the supplier 832 can specify content        restrictions, the level of accepted targeting and a minimum        price for the inventory unit;    -   2. Buyers 802 place orders to buy inventory from the public        exchange. Within that order the buyer can specify audience goals        and maximum unit price (the ‘bid’). In addition, the buyer 802        may specify targeting parameters including—but not limited        to—dayparts, markets and formats;    -   3. Offered inventory 822 becomes due for auction when the        earlier of the following events occur:        -   a. the offer has a “good until” time configured and is about            to expire; and        -   b. the inventory is scheduled to air within a minimum            time-to-air (As a guiding principle, the public exchange may            delay the auction to the latest possible time to maximize            the matching demand and consequently optimize yield for the            supplier 832 as well as available inventory 822 for the            demand side 802. In one embodiment, to practically process            the order, send instructions to the ad server 846 and            achieve highest compliance, the system reserves a technical            minimum time-to-air buffer);    -   4. When inventory 822 becomes due for auction, the public        exchange 810 completes the auction process by computing a        winning bid (or winning bids in the case of multiple        simultaneously auctioned units). The following steps describe        the auction process:        -   a. Determine the set of eligible orders. This step includes:            -   i. matching orders against content restriction of                offers,            -   ii. matching offers against audience goals and targeting                requirements of orders,            -   iii. filtering out orders with bids lower than the offer                minimum price, and            -   iv. applying global and order specific rotation and                repetition rules.        -   b. From the set of eligible orders, the platform computes a            winning bid or winning bids. The algorithm may have the            following properties:            -   i. bidders are incentivized to bid their true value (as                described for second-price sealed-bid auctions and                similar algorithms),            -   ii. seller's revenue is maximized, and            -   iii. auctions are fair and equal.

Non-guaranteed Nature. In one embodiment, orders are “non-guaranteed” tothe buyer 802, that is the Exchange 810 accepts orders but does notguarantee delivery. However, upon a successful auction (see above) thesupplier 832 will guarantee the delivery to the matched buyer 802 andthe buyer 802 consents to buy matched inventory 822. The buyer 802 canchange or revoke his order at any time, which will be respected forfuture auctions but will not affect any auction results from the past.

In one embodiment, offers are non-guaranteed by the supplier 832, thatis the supplier can at any time revoke offers that have not beenauctioned. Successfully auctioned offers are guaranteed as describedabove, and the Exchange does not necessarily provide any guarantees tothe supplier 832 that inventory 822 will find a buyer 802.

Classification and Targeting. In one embodiment, an order may includetargeting information that will be matched against the inventoryclassification as published by the supplier 832. The Radio ExchangePlatform 810 may assure the accuracy of classifications, but it is thechoice of the supplier 832 to define the level and granularity of theclassification on each offer.

A supplier 832 may opt-in to classify the inventory according toDaypart, Market, Station Rank and Format. By allowing such a specificclassification the offer may achieve higher prices in the auction andmay be less impacted by temporary inflation of low-cost, lower qualityinventory. Without a proper classification the inventory may still besold, but the buyer will value it solely on the achieved impressions.

In one embodiment, a summary of the characteristics of buying methodssupported by the ad exchange 810 include:

Tool-Supported Programmatic Static Bidding, RFP/IO Process GuaranteedNon-Guaranteed Commitment guaranteed guaranteed non-guaranteedTransparency transparent transparent non-transparent (blind) Granularitypackage package or individual units (e.g. network) individual unitsWorkflow sales driven automated standby demand proposals and insertionorders insertion orders

Ad exchange 810 may support other buying methods, for example:

“Buy Now” button: An extension to static bidding, suppliers 832 set aprice target (higher than the minimum price) that would allow buyers 802to circumvent the auction process and buy the inventory at that time.This includes a discovery mechanism so buyers 802 can find specificinventory in the exchange;

“RTB”: An alternative to static bidding, auctions will trigger a dynamicbid request to registered buyers who dynamically respond with a bidresponse. The deal architecture resembles RTB exchanges for digitaladvertising. A buyer 802 may use sophisticated optimization algorithmsand data that would change the true value of inventory for the buyer 802dynamically. In one embodiment, the buyer 802 may use ad exchange 810for the capability to adjust his bid on an auction-by-auction basis.Unlike in digital RTBs the ability to target individual profiles doesnot necessarily apply to broadcast but may apply for streaming/online.In one embodiment, a prospective buyer 802 might use technology that hasstandardized on OpenRTB. Another alternative to static bidding is aReverse Auction;

“Priceline” model: An alternative to static bidding and/or programmaticdirect. In one embodiment, an advantage of this blind model is itssuccess selling unsold high-quality inventory, as translated to anadvertising market with institutional, repeat buyers 802.

Inventory Management Platform 834 in Detail.

In one embodiment, the ad exchange 810 allows participating broadcastpartners 210 to programmatically sell their inventory 822. Thisinventory 822 may be programmatically purchased by agencies 204 andadvertisers 202 through DSP 804. Broadcasters 832 may provisioninventory 822 to enable the marketplace 810. The Inventory Managementplatform 834, may be used to help broadcasters 832 provision inventory.

Structure. In one embodiment, inventory management may have three typesof users: Broadcast Group 208 Inventory Managers, Radio Group 206Administrators, and Global Administrators from the programmatic adnetwork 206 without necessarily principal ownership of inventory traded.A Radio Group may be the sole supplier 832 of a private exchange 810 orrepresent a plurality of suppliers 832.

The Inventory Management Platform may provide a role-based and/orcredential-based hierarchy that includes the three users: InventoryManagers at broadcast groups with an Affiliate Inventory Manager role;Admin personnel at the Radio Group with a Network Inventory Managerrole; and internal admin personnel with a Global Inventory Manager roleat the programmatic ad network 206 without necessarily principalownership of inventory traded.

BROADCAST GROUP INVENTORY MANAGER INTERFACE. For Broadcast GroupInventory Managers, a quick start guide may comprise: launching anInventory Management tool by navigating to an applicable URL and loggingin; clicking on any week to update inventory by entering Avails andCPMs; clicking on Save to update Inventory; using the Extend buttoninstead of Save to extend this inventory to multiple weeks; contacting aRadio Group Administrator to convert Spot Rates to CPMs; and contactingRadio Group Administrator to take back inventory that is already bookedby one or more plans.

Conventions. A Radio Group may require use of standard day parts toensure uniform inventory across the system. In one embodiment, twelvestandard day parts are used: AM Drive (6 am to 10 am) Mo-Fr; AM DriveSaturday; AM Drive Sunday; Mid Day (10 am to 3 pm) Mo-Fr; Mid DaySaturday; Mid Day Sunday; PM Drive (3 pm to 7 pm) Mo-Fr; PM DriveSaturday; PM Drive Sunday; Evening (7 pm to 12 am) Mo-Fr; EveningSaturday; and Evening Sunday.

CPM Pricing. In one embodiment, a Radio Group's tool(s) may requirepricing inventory by CPM. CPM based pricing may make it easier to manageinventory across multiple stations and weeks. A Radio Groupadministrator may help translate Spot Prices in dollars to CPMs andassist with the initial inventory load.

In one embodiment, a calculation is RATE*1000/AQH, wherein: RATE is the60 second Spot price; and AQH is based on P18-49, MSu 6 a-12 m. In oneembodiment, the AQH is not related to the audience number of a planbeing presented to advertisers but is a separate consistent audiencenumber that is considered delivered for each spot run. This number isfor calculation purposes and acts as the base, the real variable in theequation determining the cost is the spot rate. An identical sample AQHmay theoretically be used as a placeholder for every station but using atrue audience number may help cost analysis elsewhere. P18-49, MSu 6a-12 m as a default is helpful as that is what Metrics uses for somecalculations.

Setup and Inventory Load. In one embodiment, broadcast groups may followthis process to get their organization set up and configured to useInventory Management 834. It is assumed that the Broadcast group mayhave signed a Radio Group contract at this point.

Organization and User setup. In one embodiment, a Radio Grouprepresentative may work with the Broadcast group's contact to set up theorganization and users within the Example Radio Group system. Thefollowing information may be needed to set up an organization within aRadio Group: Company Name; Address; and Point of contact name & emailaddress.

A Radio Group representative may collect the list of Broadcast grouppersonnel email ID's who may be managing the group's inventory. TheExample Radio Group administrator may ensure that users are createdwithin the system. Each email ID in the list may receive an email froman administrative support team with the subject “You have been invitedto the ad exchange”. The recipients of email may then click on the“Click here” link in the email to select a password and continue theuser creation process and eventually receive confirmation of accountcreation.

Station Load and Template Association. In one embodiment, the broadcastgroup's stations 210 may be loaded onto the system before inventory maybe provisioned. The station load is performed by an Radio GroupAdministrator. Broadcast groups may provide the following information toensure their stations are uploaded and associated with theirorganization: FCC ID of the station; Station call letter in the formatEXAMPLE RADIO GROUP-FM; DMA of the station; Station's Format; If thestation is controversial (e.g. Yes or No); If the station is unrated(e.g. Yes or No); and the Station's guideline for pricing 30 s as apercentage of 60 second spot.

The Example Radio Group Administrator may also create templates withstandard Example Radio Group day parts and associates them with all thestations for ease of use. The template assignment may be done behind thescenes and may be transparent to the broadcast group's InventoryManagers.

Initial Inventory Provisioning. Templated Inventory Provisioning: In oneembodiment, a Radio Group provides templates to enable more effortlessinventory provisioning. Broadcast groups may provide typical avails forboth 30 s and 60 s along with CPMs for the standard Radio Groupdayparts. The Radio Group Administrator may ensure this inventory isadded to the template for a duration of time.

For example, if a broadcast group 208 is comfortable in sharing 4 slotsin the weekday am and pm dayparts, 10 slots in their midday, evening andweekend dayparts, they may have a generic Spot Rate or CPMs for each ofthese dayparts as shown in the below table and may have this sample asinventory for the next quarter across all their stations. The RadioGroup Administrator may then create a template as shown below and applyit to all stations for the upcoming quarter.

Daypart Length Avails Mo-fr 6a-10a 60 4 Mo-fr 10a-3p 60 10 Mo-fr 3p-7p60 4 Mo-fr 7p-12a 60 10 Sa 6a-10a 60 10 . . . Su 7p-12a 60 10 DaypartCPM Mo-fr 6a-10a $8.00 Mo-fr 10a-3p $5.00 Mo-fr 3p-7p $7.00 Mo-fr 7p-12a$3.00 Sa 6a-10a $4.00 . . . Su 7p-12a $4.00

Manual Inventory Provisioning. In one embodiment, templated inventoryprovisioning may be suited for situations where all stations within thebroadcast group 208 have similar pattern of inventory or prices. Howeverit may not be the case for some broadcasters with diverse set of radiostations. Such broadcast groups may use the Extend tool to provisioninventory. A Radio Group Administrator may be available to help thebroadcast groups during this phase.

In one embodiment, an example user interface sequence is now given: thebroadcast group's Inventory Manager may navigate to the platform 834 andlog in to launch Inventory Management Tool. The stations may all displayzero as provisioned inventory. They may select the station and start ofthe provisioning period. Avails and CPM sections may be available on thescreen after the Inventory Manager clicks on a week. Avails may have thesame numbers set up in the template; since the Extend based provisioningis being described, assume that the template may have zeros for allavails and the Inventory Manager platform may enter the Avails. CPMs mayalso be inherited from the templates. Assuming they too were zero in thetemplates, the user enters CPMs.

In one embodiment, an Inventory Manager may click on the Extend buttonabove Avails section. The Inventory Manager may then enter the durationto provision inventory. For example, the Inventory Manager may elect toprovision inventory starting from the week of 2/29 and ending with theweek of 3/28. Clicking on the Save button may start the process ofprovisioning inventory. This process might take a few minutes tocomplete. Each week's cell may display the total number of Avails oncethe week's inventory provisioning is complete. Also note the totals mayonly reflected for the weeks with provisioned Inventory. The process maybe repeated for each station to complete the process of inventoryprovisioning.

Ongoing Inventory Management. Viewing Inventory. In one embodiment,Inventory Managers may navigate to the Inventory Management Portal URIand login to launch the Inventory Management tool. For example,Inventory Managers may view aggregate inventory. For instance, stationEXMP-FM may have 74 spots for weeks 2/29, 3/07, 3/14, and 3/21,inventory is not provisioned for week 3/28 and beyond. Inventory is notprovisioned for the two other stations that the inventory manager mayhave access to for any of the weeks listed.

In one embodiment, Inventory Managers may click on any station and weekcell to view inventory details. For example, the Inventory Manager mayclick on the week of 3/07 and may view inventory details on a UI panel.An Avails widget may show the details of inventory by dayparts. Forexample, Monday to Friday 10 am to 3 pm daypart (mo-fr 10a-3p) may havea total of five spots provisioned. Of the five spots, four may be bookedand one is available. Inventory Managers may provision both 60 s and 30s spots.

In one embodiment, a CPM widget near the Avails widget may be used toupdate prices. Prices may be quoted in CPMs and may be distinct for eachdaypart. For example, Radio Group prices may be quoted for 60 secondSpot in CPMs. The price of an 30 s may be a percentage of the price of a60 s in the same daypart. This percentage may be indicated at the top ofthe CPM widget. The percentage may be fixed and/or variable and set upwhen the Radio Group Administrator associates templates with thestations.

In an example of a CPM widget, a price of a 30 second spot is set at 66%of an 60 second spot, and an AM drive daypart (mo-fr 6 a-10 a) costs$8.00 CPM. A Radio Group may only support pricing by CPMs, or supportalternate pricings. Total prices may be calculated based off of fixedPayout AQH numbers entered by the Radio Group Administrator. The PayoutAQH, although close to the actual AQH, may be different from actual AQHspublished by Nielsen. The Payout AQHs entered by a Radio Groupadministrator may be used for the purposes of converting CPMs to SpotRates. Inventory Managers may contact their Radio Group Administratorfor additional details and to convert Spot Rates into CPMs.

Adjust Inventory. In one embodiment, an Inventory Manager may have toadjust inventory for various reasons. They may want to increaseinventory to reflect the demand generated by Radio Group, or they maywant to reduce inventory sold through other channels. A ongoing processof inventory adjustment may be done easily by using the Avails widgetand modifying the Avails to the desired number. For example, Monday toFriday 10 am to 3 pm daypart (mo-fr 10 a-3 p) may have a total of fivespots provisioned, of the five spots, four are booked and one isavailable. The Inventory Manager may change the number of Avails to sixand Save to increase the total number of Avails to ten. Or the reverse,the Inventory Manager may make the number of Avails to zero and Save toreduce the provisioned Avails to just four.

Take Back Booked Inventory. In one embodiment, an Inventory Managers isprevented from reducing the Booked inventory which may damage plans viathe Inventory Management tool. However in extreme cases, a Radio GroupAdministrator may manually return Booked inventory back to broadcasters.An Radio Group Administrator may be contacted to initiate this process.

Adjust Prices. In one embodiment, an Inventory Manager may have toadjust prices to reflect business needs on an ongoing basis. This may beaccomplished by selecting the desired week, updating CPMs, and clickingSave. Inventory Managers may update CPMs of 60 second spots, as pricesof 30 second spots may be automatically adjusted based on percentage setup in the template. For instance, Inventory Managers may raise or lowerCPMs of one or more dayparts and click Save. The prices may be reflectedimmediately in the system and available for planner to use. In oneembodiment, updated prices may be used for future sales, as bookedinventory may retain their prices when billed to the advertiser/agency202/204.

Automated Give Back. In one embodiment, Radio Group's policy may be thatof giving back inventory two weeks before air time. This policy isenforced while the templates are being assigned to stations as 14 days.Thus, unsold inventory may be updated to zero at two weeks before airtime. In other words, inventory sales may stop two weeks before airtime. In one embodiment, ad exchange 810 supports sales until the ‘lastminute’ within the two weeks before airtime until a day/hour/minutebefore airtime.

Ongoing Inventory Provisioning. In one embodiment, an Inventory Managermay provision inventory for upcoming months or quarters using the Extendwidget. The process is similar to initial provisioning of inventory, asdescribed in the Extend widget based Manual Inventory provisioningsection above.

RADIO GROUP ADMINISTRATOR INVENTORY MANAGER INTERFACE. In oneembodiment, Radio Group administrators with a Network Inventory Managerrole also have all the capabilities of an Inventory Manager at abroadcast group.

Inventory Management. Administrator Avail Widget. In one embodiment, aRadio Group Administrator's version of Avail widget differs from aBroadcast group's Inventory Manager's view. A Broadcast group'sInventory Manager may only modify unbooked inventory via the Availscolumn. In other words, a Broadcast group's Inventory Manager isdiscouraged from taking back booked inventory as it may damage plans. Bycontrast, the Radio Group Administrator may have the ability to takeback booked inventory. One way to achieve this is by directly updatingthe Total column (Booked+Avail). The administrator widget may allow theRadio Group administrator to update the Total column.

Administrator Extend Widget. In one embodiment, a Broadcast group'sInventory Managers may use the Extend functionality to provision freshinventory. However they are discouraged from updating or taking backfrom existing inventory using the Extend widget. In other words, theBroadcast group Inventory Manager's version of Extend button is onlyenabled when all subsequent weeks have provisioned inventory. Bycontrast, a Radio Group administrator's version of the Extend widget mayhave the capability to both update and take back existing inventory. TheExtend button may be enabled regardless of the provisioned inventory.Existing inventory or prices may be updated by updating the Total Columnin the Avails widget, clicking on Extend button, selecting the durationand clicking on Save button. Clicking on the “Damage Plans” checkbox mayforce update the request across the entire duration and may damage plansas needed. In one embodiment, if this checkbox is not selected, theapplication may only update the inventory and prices for the weeks whereit is possible to do so without damaging plans.

Take Back Booked Inventory. In one embodiment, taking back bookedinventory may be accomplished in two ways. The Avails widget may be usedto update the Totals to any number. Once saved, the inventory total mayforce the system to take back booked inventory if needed. The Extendwidget with the Damage Plans checked is a second option. The Extendwidget makes it possible to quickly take back inventory from multipleweeks at once.

Station Management. In one embodiment, a Stations section of InventoryManagement exists to enable Radio Group Administrators to view all thestations. The list of stations may be filtered by using a Filtersbutton/control. A Radio Group Administrator may filter the station listby one or more stations, partners (broadcast groups), or DMAs. Thefiltering tool may be convenient to view a subset of stations.

Unrated and Controversial. In one embodiment, a Radio GroupAdministrator may mark stations as Unrated or Controversial and updatethese settings on Stations tab. These settings may be set usingcheckboxes.

GLOBAL ADMINISTRATOR INVENTORY MANAGEMENT INTERFACE. In one embodiment,Global Administrators have all the capabilities of both a Broadcastgroup's Inventory Managers and a Radio Group Administrator along withother specific administrative tools.

Quick Start Guide Stations. In one embodiment, a Stations section may beused to upload and manage stations available within the InventoryManagement platform for the selected Network. Global Administrators mayclick on Import Broadcasters link to upload a CSV file with stations.The uploaded station's controversial and ratings flags may bemanipulated on this panel.

Templates. In one embodiment, templates, also known as contracts, are away to create standard and default inventory data. Global Administratorsmay create or update templates. An Ad Network's default settings may beset before creating a template, for example the dayparts and Give Backduration for a Radio Group network may be standardized.

Assignments. In one embodiment, an Assignment section helps GlobalAdministrators to assign templates to one or more stations; theseassignments may be temporary with an end date or permanent. For example,template assignments may be done for a set period of time to allow ofassigning new templates in future.

Inventory. In one embodiment, an Inventory section may have the sameexact privileges as a Radio Group Administrator but across all networksassigned. A Global Administrator may update inventory of any stations onall the networks assigned and may use an Extend widget similar to aRadio Group Administrator and may take back inventory even if it damagesplans, or may limit damage by unchecking a “allow plan damage” box.

Demand Side Platform 804 in Detail.

In one embodiment, a Demand Side Platform 804 and its buying experiencecomprise: an application store for Picking Networks or SpotMarketplaces; an application store for Data providers for applicableMarketplaces; allowing a different Audience book than that based onNielsen and using that for planning; different RFP screens for differentmarketplaces/data; providing rich results and/or export of data; andenabling different actions like Cancel/Replan/Split/Delete.

The Demand Side Platform 804 is described as a series of user storiesand user scenarios below:

User Scenario 1: TOS and Approval of Seats for a Marketplace. In oneembodiment, a user is a buyer for ad agency 204, and the Global Salesteam representing the programmatic ad network 206 without necessarilyprincipal ownership of inventory traded. One possible flow includes:Agency 204 approaches Global Sales Team 206; Global Sales Team providesDSP Terms and Services to Agency; once Agency agrees to DSP Terms andServices and signs contract with Network 206, Agencies may be connectedwith different marketplaces available on DSP; When a MarketPlace andAgency agree on TOS and sign a mutual contract, MarketPlace approvesthis Agency a seat and intimates Network 206. In one embodiment, thesesteps are all offline. Once the seat is granted, the Network 206 maycreate a account for an Agency 204 user who in turn may createadditional users to DSP using the platform.

User Scenario 2: User is able to Login. In one embodiment, a user is aPlanner and/or Agency 204 Self Service Buyer. A Planner may be from anad network 206 and/or broadcast group 208 to help assist an advertiser202 and/or ad agency 204 as a seller assisted model. One possible flowincludes: a user goes to the DSP; user sees a login panel and may log inusing the User Name and Password they have set as credentials.

User Scenario 3: Once Logged In, User sees different MarketPlaces. Inone embodiment, a user is an advertiser 202, planner and/or agency 204Self Service Buyer. One possible flow includes: a user goes to the DSP;the user sees the both Spot and Network Marketplaces that they haveaccess to. In one embodiment, a user only sees the Marketplaces theyhave access to. Logo and text for each private exchange 210 may beprovided by the corresponding Broadcast Group. The logo and text may becustomizable; for example a logo dimension should be least 300 px onshort side of image (height or width), preferably 150-300 dpi or vectorformat, and text length specified to around 100 characters.

For example, a Radio Group may include both an Audience and Spot intoone Radio Group MarketPlace. The DSP Landing page may then have both aRadio Group Marketplace representing private exchange 810, and a secondpublic exchange 810. Upon clicking the Radio Group MarketPlace, the DSP804 may display a Radio Group Advanced Dataset option, a NielsenNationWide Dataset option, and a Nielsen MSA Dataset option. If the userselects the Nielsen MSA Dataset then the DSP 804 would take them to theRadio Group Spot Buying Workflow. Alternately, upon clicking the publicMarketPlace the DSP 804 would show a Nielsen MSA Dataset option.

FIG. 10A and FIG. 10B are screenshots for a user interface for a demandside platform. FIG. 10A is a UI related to DSP 804 causing a pluralityof broadcast media ad networks to be displayed for selection. In theexample of FIG. 10A two broadcast media ad networks are presented to theuser John from ad agency X: one private exchange (1002), wherein allstations associated with the ad network #1 are affiliated with oneentity, and one public exchange (1004), wherein all stations associatedwith the ad network #2 are affiliated with a plurality of entities.

FIG. 10B is a UI related to DSP 804 causing a plurality data sets to bedisplayed for selection, given that the user selected the Ad Network #1private exchange (1002) in the previous screen of FIG. 10A. Three datasets are available for selection: one using third-party data from AdNetwork #1 (1052); one using first-party and/or Nielsen data forstations (1054); and one using first-party and/or Nielsen data for MSAsor metropolitan statistical areas (1056) for spot plans.

User Scenario 4: User selects a MarketPlace to see the Plan workbench.In one embodiment, a user is a Planner or Agency Self Service Buyer. Onepossible flow includes: a user goes to the DSP; the user logs in; theuser picks a marketplace; the user sees the workbench with Plans thatthey have access to and those that belong to the picked marketplace. Inone embodiment, a “workbench” has columns for each campaign including:Created Date; Start Date; End Date; Total Weeks; Planner; Name; Datasetused; Agency in seller assisted view (may not be present for agencybuyers); Advertiser; Budget; Status (Booked/Saved/Cancellation); Sharedby an agency (which indicates the plans Shared by Agency to the sellerin the Seller Assisted View), where this Icon may become “Shared” in theAgency View; Locked, which indicates whether a plan falls withincancellation policy or not.

FIG. 11 is a screenshot for a user interface for a demand side platformworkbench. In one embodiment, Buyers may Filter the workbench to seeplans based on one or more of the following: “Agency” to only show inseller assisted model; State; Plan Name; Active weeks; Trafficked (aboolean value); Shared; Locked (a boolean value), wherein a Locked planis a plan where any changes to the plan may violate the cancellationpolicy per the TOS of the marketplace. In an edge case, if there are noexisting plans in this marketplace/organization combination then theuser is taken directly to the data providers page.

User Scenario 5: User is able to pick an appropriate data provider. Inone embodiment, a user is a Planner or Agency Self Service Buyer. Onepossible flow includes: a user goes to the DSP; the user logs in; theuser picks a marketplace; the user clicks on a new plan on the Plan Listpage; the user sees the data providers that the user's Organization haveaccess to and applicable to the Marketplace. Examples of applicabledatasets by marketplace include for a Radio Group Audiences dataset: aRadio Group advanced dataset or a Nielsen Audio NationWide dataset.Another example for a Spot Marketplace (for a Radio Group for example)is a Nielsen MSA Dataset. Again, Logo and Text on the datasets may beconfigurable to provide quick branding identification.

User Scenario 6: Picking Radio Group Data//Completing RFP Screen. In oneembodiment, a user is a Planner or Agency Self Service Buyer. Onepossible flow includes: a user goes to the DSP; the user logs in; theuser picks a marketplace; the user clicks on a new plan on the Plan Listpage; user picks the Radio Group. The User may then pick at least one ofthe following elements: Audience Category (e.g. Auto Intenders); Dropdown of available Categories; Audience Survey (e.g. Spring 2015); Dropdown of available books for that Category; Audience Segment: The valuefrom the category (e.g. BMW, Nissan); Drop down of available values forthis Category and Data Book (usually only a single cohort may beselected); Type input for Goal in Impressions; Type input for Budgetlimit; Pick Flight start and end date; Pick Locations; Pick ShowExclusions; Pick Agency (for seller assisted model)—Agency selection maynot be available for Agency buyer; Pick Advertiser; and Pick SpotLength.

User Scenario 7: Picking Nielsen Data//User is able to complete RFP planpage. In one embodiment, a user is a Planner or Agency Self ServiceBuyer. One possible flow includes: a user goes to the DSP; the user logsin; the user picks a marketplace; the user clicks on a new plan on thePlan List page; the user picks Nielsen NationWide.

FIGS. 12A, 12B, 12C, 12D, 12E, 12F, 12G, 12H, and 12I are screenshotsdetailing a sequence of user interfaces for a demand side platformplanning routine. FIG. 12A is a UI related to DSP 804 showing theoptions a User may pick. The User may pick at least one of the followingelements: Data book (e.g. Spring 2015); Drop down of available books forthat Category; Age; Gender; Type input for Goal in Impressions; Typeinput for Budget limit; Pick Flight start and end date; Pick Locations;Pick Show Exclusions; Pick Agency (for seller assisted model)—Agencyselection may not be available for Agency buyer; Pick Advertiser; andPick Spot Length (30 or 60). FIG. 12A includes optionally to configureadvanced goals (1202), widget to include/exclude markets/formats (1204)with the default selecting all markets/all formats, and widge toinclude/exclude shows (1206) with the default selecting all shows.

FIG. 12B is a UI related to DSP 804 showing the options a User may pickfor Reach, including by impressions or by national GRPs. FIG. 12C is aUI related to DSP 804 showing example sets of parameters/spec values for1,000,000 impressions, a budget limit of $60,000, and a flight between3/23/2015 and 4/19/2015.

User Scenario 8: Picking Spot MarketPlaces//User is able to fill RFPplan page. In one embodiment, a user is a Planner or Agency Self ServiceBuyer. One possible flow includes: a user goes to the DSP; the user logsin; the user picks a Spot marketplace; the user clicks on new plan onthe Plan List page. The User may then pick at least one of the followingelements: Diary Data book (e.g. Spring 2015)—Multiple data books may beselected, AQH used by the planner may be average of the Booksused—wherein at least one diary book should be picked; PPM Data book(e.g. May 2015)—Multiple data books may be selected, AQH used by theplanner may be average of the Books used—wherein at least one PPM bookshould be picked; Age; Gender; Content Exclusions of Format and Shows;Pick Agency (for seller assisted model)—Agency selection may not beavailable for Agency buyer; Pick Advertiser; Pick Spot Length.

User Scenario 9: User is able to pick advanced goals for a networkmarketplace. In one embodiment, a user is a Planner or Agency SelfService Buyer. One possible flow includes: a user goes to the DSP; theuser logs in; the user picks a marketplace; the user clicks on a newplan on the Plan List page; the user picks a Radio Group or Agency Dataor Nielsen. The user then is able to input one or more of the followingfor the first config: Pick Goal as Impressions or National GRPS;Multiple Start and End dates; Pick Daypart distribution where thedayparts are AM Drive, MidDay, PM Drive, OverNight; Multiple Markets maybe typed in or selected from the location picker; Buyers may then selectReach goal, Pricing goal (CPM or CPP), and Budget limit—wherein only twoof Reach, Pricing, and Budget are needed and the third is automaticallycalculated. Each config may be automatically numbered in an ascendingfashion, and a User may also copy config. Each config is numbered andeach row within a config is numbered. After the values are selected andsubmitted then user is taken back to the RFP screen (which may simplyprovide an option to edit advanced goals).

FIG. 12D is a UI related to DSP 804 showing example advanced goals(1202) for a set of parameters, that shows a goal type in impressionsand/or GRPs. The advanced goals in the example of FIG. 12D include adate range between 1/1/2016 and 1/31/2016 and a 50% AM Drive to 50% PMDrive daypart goal

FIG. 12E is a UI related to DSP 804 showing an exampleinclusion/exclusion panel for advanced goals (1202) for a set ofparameters for formats. Formats shown in FIG. 12E include AdultContemporary (AC) music in various subformats like “80 s & 90 s”, “HotAC”, “Lite AC”, “Lite Rock”, “Modern AC” and “Soft AC”, and ContemporaryHit Radio (CHR) music in various subformats like “Adult CHR”,“CHR/Rhyme”, “CHR/Top 40”, and “CHR/UrCtp” or urban contemporary CHR.The number of total formats is given, for example 59 in FIG. 12E, aswell as the number of stations for each format/subformat. In the examplegiven in FIG. 12E, “Modern AC” is a format excluded in the set ofparameters, excluding 3 stations.

FIG. 12F is a UI related to DSP 804 showing an exampleinclusion/exclusion panel for advanced goals (1202) for a set ofparameters for markets. Markets shown in FIG. 12F include markets likeNew York, N.Y., Los Angeles, Calif., Chicago, Ill., Philadelphia, Pa.,Dallas-Ft. Worth, Tex., San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose, Calif., andBoston (Manchester), Mass. The number of total markets is given, forexample 210 in FIG. 12F, as well as the state and rank for each market.In the example given in FIG. 12F, “San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose,Calif.” is a market excluded in the set of parameters, excluding the6^(th) ranked market.

FIG. 12G is a UI related to DSP 804 showing a second example of advancedgoals (1202) for a set of parameters. FIG. 12G may be chronologicallyafter FIG. 12D for a given set of parameters, and shows a location of“Eugene, Oreg. & 49 others” representing 10 GRPs, $5,000 CPP, a $50,000budget limit, and a location of “New York, N.Y. & 100 others”representing 10 GRPs, $4,500 CPP, a $45,000 budget limit, to be run from1/1/2016 through 1/31/2016 with a 50% AM Drive to 50% PM Drive daypartgoal. FIG. 12G also shows a location of “Eugene, Oreg. & 99 others”representing 15 GRPs, $5,000 CPP, a $75,000 budget limit, to be run from1/19/2016-2/6/2016, 3/2/2016-3/16/2016, and 3/23/2016-4/17/2016 with a50% AM Drive to 50% PM Drive daypart goal.

FIG. 12H is a UI related to DSP 804 showing a generalinclusion/exclusion for setting location parameters (1204), which in oneembodiment is similar to the panels shown in FIGS. 12E and 12F.

FIG. 12I is a UI related to DSP 804 showing a generalinclusion/exclusion for setting show parameters (1206). In the exampleshown, shows are shown with an optional logo and a category, for exampleif a show is controversial. The example shows several shows includingthe Rush Limbaugh show, the Glenn Beck show, and the Ryan Seacrest show,the first two being controversial. FIG. 12I also indicates there are 110shows in total for inclusion/exclusion, and that the Rush Limbaugh showis excluded.

User Scenario 10: User is able to pick advanced goals for a spotmarketplace. In one embodiment, a user is a Planner or Agency SelfService Buyer. One possible flow includes: a user goes to the DSP; theuser logs in; the user picks a marketplace; the user clicks on a newplan on the Plan List page; the user picks Nielsen MSA data. The usermay then input for a first config one or more of the following: PickGoal as Impressions or Local GRPS; Multiple Start and End dates; PickDaypart distribution where the dayparts are AM Drive, MidDay, PM Drive,OverNight; Single Market or Station may be selected—as the user istyping suggestions may be provided to the user; Buyers may then selectReach goal, Pricing goal (CPM or CPP), Budget limit—wherein only two ofReach, Pricing, Budget are needed and the third is automaticallycalculated. Each config is automatically numbered in an ascendingfashion, and a User may also copy config. After the values are selectedand submitted then user is taken back to the RFP screen (which maysimply provide an option to edit advanced goals).

User Scenario 11: User saves a plan (Planning→save). In one embodiment,a user is a Planner or Agency Self Service Buyer. One possible flowincludes: a user goes to the DSP; the user logs in; the user picks amarketplace; user completes planning; user clicks on save. The result isa plan state is changed to “Save” from “Planning”. Upon clicking Save apossible message is shown: “Please note that the plan inventory willonly be locked after you Book this plan. Saving a plan only saves planinput and goals. [Cancel] [Save]” (wherein [X] denotes a button with Xdisplayed on the button).

FIGS. 13A, 13B, and 13C are screenshots detailing a sequence of userinterfaces for a demand side platform overview. FIG. 13A shows details(1302) of a set of parameters/plan. In the example of FIG. 13A, a DasAuto plan includes a budget of $165,000, 35 GRPs, and $5,200 CPP inplanning with basic information for a set of parameters including a dataset (Nielsen Audio Nationwide), a data book (Spring Nationwide 2015) forthat data set, an audience (p12+), a location (all markets in 6formats), and shows (10 shows). The example shows that the plan may beviewed by details (1302), by goals (1304), and by breakdowns (1306). Theexample in FIG. 13A also displays a series of tabular Insights, forexample the Top 5/10/50 Markets, the top Markets, Dayparts, Weeks, andFormats as responsive to the plan.

FIG. 13B shows goals of a set of parameters/plan. In the example of FIG.13B, for a flight date between 3/23/2015-3/29/2015, the 2,000,000impression goal is resulting in 1,500,000 for its associated ad proposalat the time FIG. 13B is displayed, and the $500,000 budget goal isresulting in $500,000 for its associated ad proposal at the time FIG.13B is displayed.

FIG. 13C shows breakdowns of a set of parameters/plan. In the example ofFIG. 13C, for the plan a breakdown may be shown by markets, formats,and/or shows, and happens to show by market in FIG. 13C. For eachmarket, the proposal impressions, GRPs, and spots are displayed to givea breakdown by market.

User Scenario 12: User books a plan (save→book). In one embodiment, auser is a Planner or Agency Self Service Buyer. One possible flowincludes: a user goes to the DSP; the user logs in; the user picks amarketplace; user completes planning and the plan is in Save state; userclicks on Book. The result is that in the event the Health of plan isless than 100% a an example message is shown (for 90% Health): “10% ofyour plan inventory is no longer available. You can book the remaining90% as is, or replan. [Replan] [Book]” FIG. 14 is a screenshot to showbooking a plan with less than full health. Alternately, if the Health ofplan is 100% or if the user decides to book even if the health is lessthan 100%, the system proceeds to book by showing a message to agreewith the TOS: “By booking the plan, you are agreeing to the Terms andServices. [Replan][Book]”. All booked plans may become visible to supplyside planners.

An important edge case handled is when booking a saved plan thattriggers unbooking of a second plan (that is within the violationpolicy) then a message is displayed, for example “The plan you arebooking will automatically un-book another plan, causing a violation tothe Terms and Services agreement on that plan. Please cancel that planbefore booking this one. (Plan affected shown).” This scenario is asfollows: Plan A is Booked; user replans Plan A to create a Plan B; ifthe user wants to book Plan B then Plan A should be canceled, and atthis point it may trigger a TOS violation on Plan A.

User Scenario 13: User splits a plan by date range. In one embodiment, auser is a Planner or Agency Self Service Buyer. One possible flowincludes: a user goes to the DSP; the user logs in; the user picks amarketplace; the user may split a plan into two using a date (before thedate and after the date). For example, the date may only be end of abroadcast week, wherein splits may not be allowed in a middle of abroadcast week. One result may be that two plans are created split atthe date picked.

User Scenario 14: User cancels a booked plan without violatingcancellation policy. In one embodiment, a user is a Planner or AgencySelf Service Buyer. One possible flow includes: a user goes to the DSP;the user logs in; the user picks a marketplace; user completes planning;user clicks on Cancel. One result is that a message is shown: “Are yousure you want to cancel your plan? [Do Not Cancel] [Cancel Plan]”. Oneerror case caught is if the plan is part of a campaign a message isdisplayed: “The plan you are trying to modify/delete is part of one ormultiple campaigns. Please remove it from those campaigns first beforemodifying it.”

User Scenario 15: User cancels a plan when the plan violates thecancellation policy. In one embodiment, a user is a Planner or AgencySelf Service Buyer. One possible flow includes: a user goes to the DSP;the user logs in; the user picks a marketplace; user books a plan; userclicks on Cancel. One possible result when the plan violates thecancellation policy is showing a message to the user where the date iscalculated as per the Terms and Service of each marketplace, Date{dd/mm/yyyy} is calculated using the cancellation policy per themarketplace and last week. For Example: If MarketPlace cancellationpolicy is 2 weeks, Date is calculated as the end of broadcast weekstarting now to 2 weeks out; if 2 weeks out is a Wed then that week Sunmay be the calculated date. Cancellation policies may be different fordifferent marketplaces. The shown message is: “Cancelling your plan nowviolates the Terms and Services agreement. If you wish to cancel, anyinventory booked between now and {dd/mm/yyyy} cannot be changed withoutpenalty. To cancel only inventory that is not locked, you can split theplan at {dd/mm/yyyy} to separate the locked inventory. You can thencancel the plan starting {dd/mm/yyyy}. You can also cancel your entireplan. According to our Terms and Services, you will be invoiced forbooked inventory between now and {dd/mm/yyyy}. [Do Not Cancel][CancelPlan]”

User Scenario 16: User replan a booked plan that doesn't violate Termsand Services. In one embodiment, a user is a Planner or Agency SelfService Buyer. One possible flow includes: a user goes to the DSP; theuser logs in; the user picks a marketplace; user completes planning,user clicks on Replan. One possible result is to take the user to an RFPpage and after they make changes and click submit, with a messageshowing replan options: “Replan options include: New Revision—This willalter the configuration of an RFP but the resulting plan(s) will not beanchored to the original plan; Anchored revision restricted to originalplacements—The new plan(s) will be anchored to the original plan andonly allowed to use its placements. This is the more restrictive optionthat guarantees no additive changes to the lineup; Anchored revisionrestricted to original sites—The new plan(s) will be anchored to theoriginal plan and only allowed to use its sites. This is a restrictiveoption that keeps the structure of the lineup intact but may choose toincrease placements; Anchored revision and allow new sites—The newplan(s) will be anchored to the original plan and use its placement withpreference. However, the resulting plan(s) may also use new sites if thegoals cannot be met with the original sites only.” FIG. 15 is ascreenshot to show replanning a booked plan.

User Scenario 17: User Replans a Plan that Violates Terms and Services.

In one embodiment, a user is a Planner or Agency Self Service Buyer. Onepossible flow includes: a user goes to the DSP; the user logs in; theuser picks a marketplace; user completes planning, user clicks onReplan. One possible result when the re-planned plan violates a policyis showing a message to the user where the date is calculated as per theTerms and Service of each marketplace, Date {dd/mm/yyyy} is calculatedusing the cancellation policy per the marketplace and last week. ForExample: If MarketPlace cancellation policy is 2 weeks, Date iscalculated as the end of broadcast week starting now to 2 weeks out; if2 weeks out is a Wed then that week Sun may be the calculated date.Cancellation policies may be different for different marketplaces. Theshown message is: “Replanning your plan now violates the Terms andServices agreement. If you wish to replan, any inventory booked betweennow and {dd/mm/yyyy} cannot be changed without penalty. To change theother weeks, you can split the plan at {dd/mm/yyyy} to separate thelocked inventory. You can then replan the plan starting {dd/mm/yyyy}.”

User Scenario 18: User clones a plan. In one embodiment, a user is aPlanner or Agency Self Service Buyer. One possible flow includes: a usergoes to the DSP; the user logs in; the user picks a marketplace; theuser may clone a saved or booked plan by selecting the “clone” action.One possible result is that the the user is taken to the RFP page withall details filled, and the user cannot change “Marketplace” or“Dataset”.

User Scenario 20: User may launch a plan into a campaign. In oneembodiment, a user is a Planner or Agency Self Service Buyer. Onepossible flow includes: a user goes to the DSP; the user logs in; theuser picks a marketplace; the user may click on a plan and take the“Launch” action. One possible result is that the plan is launched into acampaign. All Booked plans may be visible to supply side planners. MSAsmay be used instead of DMAs in a spot marketplace. In the event a planin a campaign is cancelled, a message is shown “This plan is part of oneor more campaigns. Please remove it from those campaigns beforemodifying or canceling [affected campaigns displayed].” Event rules areconfigured by a Marketplace and the availability of datasets for auser's organization. Event rules under campaigns may only be visible tousers if the marketplace has event rules and if their organization hasan event dataset associated with the marketplace.

User Scenario 21: User may export data. In one embodiment, a user is aPlanner or Agency Self Service Buyer. One possible flow includes: a usergoes to the DSP; the user logs in; the user picks a marketplace; theuser may click on a plan and take the “Export” action. One possibleresult is that the user may download one or more of the following:Metrics as CSV; Export as Proposal XML; and Export Lineups.

User Scenario 22: An Agency User may share a plan with “MarketPlace”Sellers. In one embodiment, a user is a Planner or Agency Self ServiceBuyer. One possible flow includes: a user goes to the DSP; the user logsin; the user picks a marketplace; the user may click on a plan and takethe “Share” action. One possible result is that the Agency Plan isShared with the “MarketPlace” Sellers, and/or a message may be shown toAgency Buyers “Your Plan may be shared with [MarketPlace] sellers”.

User Scenario 23: An Agency User may un-share a plan that has beenpreviously shared with “MarketPlace” Sellers. In one embodiment, a useris a Planner or Agency Self Service Buyer. One possible flow includes: auser goes to the DSP; the user logs in; the user picks a marketplace;the user may click on a plan and set the “Share” action; then the userdesires to un-share the plan by unsetting the “Share” action, e.g. byasserting an “Un-Share” action. One possible result is that the AgencyPlan previously Shared with the “MarketPlace” Sellers is unShared. Amessage may be shown to the Agency Buyers “Your Plan may now beun-shared with [MarketPlace] sellers and [MarketPlace] sellers won't beable to view your plan”.

User Scenario 24: User may see Specs on the results page. In oneembodiment, a user is a Planner or Agency Self Service Buyer. Onepossible flow includes: a user goes to the DSP; the user logs in; theuser picks a marketplace; the user may click on a plan and take the“Export” action. One possible result is that the user may view thespecs, including a plan name, data set, data book, audience, buyer,seller, and notes. The panel may also include a table for the TopMarkets summary, Dayparts summary, Formats summary, Weeks summary, andMarkets summary.

FIGS. 16A, 16B, and 16C are screenshots detailing a sequence of userinterfaces for a demand side platform campaign. FIG. 16A shows details(1602) of an ad campaign, and shows widgets for uploading ad creative(1604) associated with the campaign, event rules (1606) associated withthe campaign and rotations (1608) associated with the campaign. In theexample of FIG. 16A, a Clothing advertiser campaign for Spring 2015 isbeing run on Ad Network #1 plan for six weeks between03/23/2015-05/18/2016, using a third-party dataset called Ad Network #1Audience, with a demographic dataset target of p18-49, impressiondataset target of 1,000,000, and a dataset budget of $60,000. In oneembodiment, multiple budgets may be provided in the event that buyershave multiple constraints that they would like the DSP to consider inbuilding out a plan. Changing said parameters may provide very differentresults. In the example given, the campaign budget is $300,000, thecampaign impression target is 2,413,100, the campaign CPM target is$5.04, the campaign GRP target is 3.838, the campaign CPP target is$3,166, and the status of the campaign is booked, also known ascommitted and/or purchased.

As part of the details (1602), basic information is given such as aname, type, seller, and buyer, as well as specs such as the campaignaudience targeted, which in FIG. 16A is given as Conservative voters inview of the third-party Ad Network #1 Political data, and peopleintending to buy an Audi, BMW, and Lexus in view of the third-party AdNetwork #1 Auto Intenders data. The example in FIG. 16A also displays aseries of tabular Insights similar to that of FIG. 13A, for example thetop Markets, Formats, Stations, DMAs, Weeks, and Dayparts as responsiveto the campaign.

FIG. 16B shows event rules (1606) of an ad campaign. In the exampleshown, there are three event rules: one for shorts associated with a Q1Apparel data set, to be run when events and/or weather values are warm,for example during a summer day; one for jackets associated with a Q1Apparel data set, to be run when events and/or weather values arenormal; and one for scarves associated with a Q1 Apparel data set, to berun when events and/or weather values are cold, for example during afreak snow storm one day.

FIG. 16C shows rotations (1608) of an ad campaign. In the example shown,a mapping of dayparts, event rules (1606), ad creatives is given for thead campaign. For all dayparts, or mo-fri 6 a-7 p, the new seasonalshorts ad creative is to be played when the shorts event rule isasserted, the light jackets ad creative is to be played when the jacketsevent rule is asserted, the cashmere scarves ad creative is to be playedwhen the scarves event rule is asserted, and otherwise the Q1 apparelsales ad creative is to be played, for the targeted 7 markets/6formats/30 stations between 5/4/2015-6/28/2015.

User Scenario 25: User may edit Specs on Network Marketplaces. In oneembodiment, a user is a Planner or Agency Self Service Buyer. Onepossible flow includes: a user goes to the DSP; the user logs in; theuser picks a marketplace; the user selects the plan they want to edit;user clicks on an “Edit” icon. One possible result is that the user mayedit: Buyer name; Seller name; and/or a generic text field like Notes.

User Scenario 26: User may edit Specs on Spot Marketplaces. In oneembodiment, a user is a Planner or Agency Self Service Buyer. Onepossible flow includes: a user goes to the DSP; the user logs in; theuser picks a marketplace; the user selects the plan they want to edit;user clicks on an “Edit” icon. One possible result is that the user mayedit: Buyer name; Seller name; and/or a generic text field like Notes.

User Scenario 27: User may view goals. In one embodiment, a user is aPlanner or Agency Self Service Buyer. One possible flow includes: a usergoes to the DSP; the user logs in; the user picks a marketplace; theuser goes to a plan results page. One possible result is that the usermay view Goals as a set of summary tables, showing the Top Markets (e.g.Top 5 Markets with associated $ and %, Top 10 Markets with associated $and %, and Top 50 Markets with associated $ and % and a pointer to showdetails), Markets (e.g. Top three MSAs with associated GRPs, $, and %and a pointer to show details), Dayparts (Top Dayparts with associated $and % and a pointer to show details), Weeks (e.g. Top three weeks withassociated $ and % and a pointer to show details), and Formats (TopFormats like Country, Cisc Rock, or Urban AC, with associated $ and %and a pointer to show details). The goals may be in the format of“Advanced Goals” that was input in, and for every input there may alsobe an output on what could be accomplished for the goal. The output maybe color coded; if Output is within 10% of Input then the Output iscolor coded as Red, if Output greater or less than 10% of Input then theOutput is color coded as Green.

In an alternate embodiment, goals show a Total Budget, a date range, adaypart distribution, and a result in Markets, showing for each row aset of Market/Stations and their associated Input and Result GRPs, Inputand Result CPP, and Input/Result/Difference for the Budget.

User Scenario 28: User may view Insights. In one embodiment, a user is aPlanner or Agency Self Service Buyer. One possible flow includes: a usergoes to the DSP; the user logs in; the user picks a marketplace; theuser is on a plan results page; the user clicks on an Insights tab. Onepossible result is that Insights are presented with various tables. OnNetwork plans the tables may contain reach whereas in Spot Plans thetables may contain dollar amounts. Some specific examples of tablesinclude: Top Markets; Ordered by Reach [GRPs/Impressions] if Network;Ordered by Dollars in the top markets bucket if Spot; IndividualMarkets; Dayparts; Weeks; and Formats.

User Scenario 29: User may view breakdowns. In one embodiment, a user isa Planner or Agency Self Service Buyer. One possible flow includes: auser goes to the DSP; the user logs in; the user picks a marketplace;the user is on a plan results page; the user clicks on a Breakdowns tab.One possible result is that First and Second dimension group by's aresupported with the following: Format; Market (Market Rank is metadatafor Market); Station (Market and Market Rank is metadata for Stationdimension); Daypart; and Week. The same group-by may not be able to bepicked on both first and second dimension but rest of the group-bys maybe combined. Columns for a possible table include: Impressions—Thismetric is Summable and includes at least two columns, one forImpressions Number, and one for % of Impressions across the plan (% mayadd up to 100%); GRPs—GRPs are shown for Nielsen NationWide and Spot.But not necessarily for a Radio Group Audience, For Nielsen NationWideGRPs are summable for Nielsen NationWide, and GRPs have at least twocolumns for GRP count and % of the Plan (% may add up to 100%), For SpotGRPs are not necessarily summable for Spot so GRPs have at least onecolumn of GRP count; Spots—Spots have at least two columns for SpotCount and % of Spot across the plan; Price/CPM/CPP—made available forSpot on both Seller Assisted and Self Service, Network (Available onSupply Side and not necessarily Available on Self Service); In SelfService Mode for Spot Marketplaces (but not necessarily forNetwork)—Price (where Price is summable, and Price includes two columnsfor Price and %), CPM where the total CPM is the CPM for the entire buyand CPM has at least one column as the CPM value for that row; CPP—InNetwork, the total CPP is the CPP for the entire buy whereas in Spot,the total CPP may not be available, and CPP has at least one column asthe CPP value for that row. The available Filters include: Format;Market; Station; Week; Daypart. The user may also download all data inthe view as a CSV.

User Scenario 30: A limited set of users on the supply side may beprovided with an ability to perform price overrides. In one embodiment,a user is a MarketPlace Planner. One possible flow includes: a user goesto the DSP; the user logs in; the user picks a marketplace; the user ison a plan results page; the user clicks on a Pricing tab. One possibleresult is that pricing data may be displayed as a table including Price,Impressions, CPM, GRPs, CPP, Spots, Adj(%), Pricing, Overplays; andReported as column headers for each Config. This UI may be exactly thesame as that for Pricing Overrides. Group By of the pricing table may beperformed using configs instead of targets. This pricing edit featuremay only be accessible to a select set of Marketplace/users as requestedby the marketplace.

User Scenario 31: A limited set of users on the supply side may beprovided with an ability to reserve a plan for the agency. In oneembodiment, a user is a MarketPlace Planner. One possible flow includes:an agency user goes to the DSP; the user logs in; the user picks amarketplace; the user creates a plan; the user saves a plan; the usershares the plan with MarketPlace. One possible result is that aMarketPlace planner may see the plan shared by the agency, and/or theMarketPlace planner may reserve the plan for the agency.

User Scenario 32: Revoking an Agency Seat on a MarketPlace. In oneembodiment, a user is a MarketPlace Seller. One possible flow includes:a MarketPlace informs programmatic ad network 206 that they would liketo revoke an Agency Seat; programmatic ad network 206 then changes theAgency access to view only where this agency users may view current andold plans but cannot create new plans/campaigns.

User Scenario 33: Managing Audience dataset access for an Agency on aMarketPlace//Radio Group. In one embodiment, one possible flow includes:Audience dataset provider creates a dataset; the dataset is tagged withan Dataset External ID; MarketPlace//Radio Group sellers/planners may goto DSP 804 and collect the Agency “Internal” ID; Each Agency may betagged with a ID in DSP 804; MarketPlace//Radio Group sellers/plannersinform programmatic ad network 206 that Agency “Internal” ID may getaccess to Dataset External ID; programmatic ad network 206 then providesaccess to this Dataset to the identified Agency. In one embodiment, anedge case that is handled includes: if Agency doesn't have any RadioGroup Audience Dataset then the Radio Group Advanced Dataset is notvisible on Dataset selection page.

User Scenario 34: Managing Conditional (Event) dataset access for anAgency on a MarketPlace//Radio Group. In one embodiment, one possibleflow includes: Weather event provider creates a dataset; the dataset istagged with an Dataset External ID; MarketPlace//Radio Groupsellers/planners may go to DSP 804 and collect the Agency “Internal” ID;each Agency may be tagged with a ID in DSP 804; MarketPlace//Radio Groupsellers/planners inform programmatic ad network 206 that Agency“Internal” ID may get access to Dataset External ID; programmatic adnetwork 206 then provides access to this conditional Dataset to theidentified Agency. One possible edge case that is handled includes: ifan Agency does not have any Radio Group Conditional Datasets then: theEvent Rules Tab under Campaigns is not visible; and the Event RulesColumn is not visible under Rotations Tab of Campaign.

User Scenario 35: When a buyer on Radio Group Network using Radio GroupAudience Dataset performs targeting by selecting an Audience Segmentshow a message warning the user that refinements could increase cost ofplan. In one embodiment, a user is a Supply side planner or an AgencyBuyer. One possible flow includes: a user goes to the DSP; the user logsin; the user picks a Radio Group marketplace; the user picks a RadioGroup advanced dataset; the user creates a plan; the user picks anaudience segment. One possible result includes: showing a messageselection of an Audience Segment that states “Please note: as you addrefinements, the cost of your plan may increase”; the message may stayon the Plan page as long as the user is on the plan page (if the userleaves the plan page and comes back, the message may not be broughtback); The notification message may be dismissed by closing thenotification message (once the notification message is dismissed thenotification may not be shown again after further interaction duringthis current plan).

User Scenario 36: Save→Book new experience from Supply side. In oneembodiment, a user is a supply side network planner. One possible flowincludes: Supply side planner goes to the DSP; the user logs in; theuser picks a Radio Group Marketplace; the user picks a Radio Groupadvanced dataset; the user creates a plan; the user saves the plan; theuser now wants to book the plan. Possible changes include: the abilityto Damage and Heal even Saved plans, not just Reserved/Booked plans;ability to show health in a Plan Details Summary; and based on theHealth the Planner may decide to book, reserve or none of the above. Inone embodiment, health is represented as a percentage from 0 to 100%.

User Scenario 37: Save→Book new experience for an Agency Buyer. In oneembodiment, a user is an agency buyer. One possible flow includes:agency user goes to the DSP; the user logs in; the user picks a RadioGroup Marketplace; the user picks a Radio Group advanced dataset; theuser creates a plan; the user saves the plan; the user now wants to bookthe plan. Possible changes include: the ability to Damage and Heal evenSaved plans, not just Reserved/Booked plans; if Health>98% booking maybe allowed, with an edge case for the event when health drops lower than98% when the user clicked the book button but the booking hasn'tfinished wherein a message is recited “Some inventory in your plan is nolonger available. To repair plan damage, please replan”; if Health<98%don't allow for booking with the following message shown “Some inventoryin your plan is no longer available. Please replan to heal damage beforebooking”, and the user is allowed to replan.

User Scenario 38: Users may delete a Saved Plan. In one embodiment, auser is an network planner or agency buyer. One possible flow includes:agency user goes to the DSP; the user logs in; the user picks a RadioGroup Marketplace; the user picks a Radio Group advanced dataset; theuser creates a plan; the user saves the plan; the user now wants todelete the plan. One possible result is that the user may delete a savedplan, for example from an Action bar.

User Scenario 39: Changes to Cancel/Replan/Split for Agency Buyers. Inone embodiment, a user is an agency buyer. One possible flow includes:agency user goes to the DSP; the user logs in; the user picks a RadioGroup Marketplace; the user picks a Radio Group advanced dataset; theuser creates a plan; the user saves/books the plan. One possible changeincludes: agency buyers may no longer cancel a booked plan (may removethe Cancel Action on Booked Plans); agency buyers may no longer split asaved/reserved/booked plan (may remove the Split Action onSaved/Reserved/Booked Plans); and agency buyers may no longer replan abooked plan (may remove the Replan Action on Booked Plans). In oneembodiment, a supply side representative may effect these actions.

User Scenario 40: Homepage (Channel Page) Changes. In one embodiment, auser is an agency buyer or a self service buyer. One possible flowincludes: upon an agency getting a seat on a Radio Group Marketplace,the agency gets an email with a link to a DSP; the agency user goes tothe DSP; the user logs in. One possible result is that the user sees aRadio Group Audiences Marketplace and a tile called “OtherMarketPlaces”. One possible set of changes include: only a first RadioGroup Audience is shown along with “Other MarketPlaces” tile; when theuser clicks “Other MarketPlaces” then all other marketplaces aredisplayed.

User Scenario 401: Channel Page Changes. In one embodiment, a user is anagency buyer or a self service buyer. One possible flow includes: uponan agency getting a seat on a Radio Group Marketplace, the agency getsan email with a link to a DSP; the agency user goes to the DSP; the userlogs in. One possible result is that the user sees this specificMarketplace and a tile called “Other MarketPlaces”. One possible set ofchanges includes: only this specific MarketPlace is shown along with“Other MarketPlaces” tile; when the user clicks “Other MarketPlaces”then all other marketplaces are displayed; though the transition onclicking “Other MarketPlaces” may keep the user on the same page, theclick may create a new link which may be bookmarked so that the user maydirectly go to the channel page with all marketplaces when desired.Vanity URLs may be offered for ease of retention.

User Scenario 41: Changes to Replan Message. In one embodiment, a useris an agency buyer or a network planner. In one embodiment, replan pagemessages include: “Would you like the new revision of your plan to beshaped like the original plan? You may restrict the new plan to only usethe stations the original did. Also, you may restrict the new plan toonly have as many plays in each week of each station as the originalplan did”; “Same Stations, Limit Play Counts. The new plan might havefewer plays in some station-weeks, but it won't have more”; “SameStations, Increase Play Counts, if Needed. In forming the plan, we firstsatisfy as much of the goal as we may without increasing play counts. Ifwe need to, we then finish off the plan by adding plays where we needto”; “Increase Stations, Increase Play Counts, if Needed. As above, informing the plan, we satisfy as much of the goal as we may without usingadditional stations or increasing play counts. If we need to, we thenfinish off the plan by adding stations and adding plays where we needto”; “Plan independently. This may shape the new plan independently ofthe shape the old plan had. The new plan may choose from all thestations allowed by your configuration and put as many plays in eachweek of each station as it needs to.”

User Scenario 42: Changes to Replan Conflict Message when a networkplanner books/reserves a plan in a RFP that already has aBooked/Reserved plan. In one embodiment, a user is a network planner. Inone embodiment, replan conflict page messages when trying to reserveand/or book include: “The following plan is a revision of the currentplan and two revisions cannot be reserved/booked at the same time. Itshould be cancelled before you may reserve/book this plan.”

User Scenario 43: Changes to Replan Conflict Message when an Agencybuyer books/reserves a plan in a RFP that already has a Booked/Reservedplan. In one embodiment, a user is a network planner. In one embodiment,replan conflict page messages when trying to reserve and/or bookinclude: “The following plan is a revision of the current plan and tworevisions cannot be reserved/booked at the same time. It should becancelled before you may reserve/book this plan”; “Please contact theMarketplace at 999-99-9999 to cancel the conflicting plan.”

FIG. 17 is an illustration of a flow chart for a demand side platform.In one embodiment, the flow chart of FIG. 17 is processed by demand sideplatform 804 in FIG. 8.

In step 1702, a selection of a broadcast media ad network (206) and aset of parameters (or a plan) including one or both of a goal and aconstraint associated with an advertising campaign is received. In oneembodiment, the selection is made using a user interface as illustratedfor example in FIGS. 10A-10B. In one embodiment, the set of parametersis input as a plan as illustrated for example in FIGS. 12A-12I.

In step 1704, an advertising proposal is determined, based at least inpart on said selection and said set of parameters. The advertisingproposal comprises an identification of a set of broadcasters associatedwith the selected broadcast media ad network and for each acorresponding advertising plan portion of the advertising proposal. Inone embodiment, the advertising proposal is illustrated for example inFIGS. 13A-13C.

In one embodiment, the advertising proposal comprises a summaryinformation comprising a daypart, and/or detailed information withregards to a specific placement. The summary information may includeenough detail to make a reasonably informed buying decision withoutrevealing all details to permit circumvention of the ad exchange and/orbuying process for the buyer to go directly to each station 210, and/orpermit market manipulation.

In step 1706, information representing the advertising proposal iscaused to be displayed at a node from which said selection and set ofparameters were received, for example the web browser and/or mobilebrowser that an advertiser 202 and/or ad agency 204 is accessing demandside platform 804. In one embodiment, the advertising proposal isdisplayed using a user interface as illustrated for example in FIGS.13A-13C and as part of a greater campaign in FIGS. 16A-16C.

In one embodiment, the DSP 804 causes an interface for changing an inputassociated with the set of parameters in the event a user wishes toiterate a next advertising proposal. An example is shown in FIGS.12B-12I wherein the user may go back to an existing saved campaign andrevise their plan/set of parameters.

In one embodiment, the goal is at least one of the following:demographics, demo-match, and number of impressions. In one embodiment,the constraint is at least one of the following: budget and priceefficiency. In one embodiment, the parameter is at least one of thefollowing: time campaign starts and time campaign ends. In oneembodiment, the broadcast media is at least one of the following: linearbroadcast, streaming, and hybrid linear/streaming.

In a step (not shown in FIG. 17), a booking control for booking theadvertising proposal is displayed at the node from which said selectionand set of parameters were received (web browser). In one embodiment, anexample of this is shown in FIG. 14 with the green button “Book”. In oneembodiment, the DSP 804 attempts to fulfill the advertising proposal inthe event the booking control is asserted. Attempting to fulfill theadvertising proposal comprises, in the event that at the time thebooking control is asserted the advertising proposal cannot becompletely fulfilled comprises presenting at least one of the followingselections: healing completely; healing completely and notify user ofoptions; healing best efforts; and healing best efforts and notify userof options. An example of such a user interface response is given inFIG. 14. In one embodiment, the DSP 804 causes an interface foruploading an ad creative associated with the ad campaign, for example asshown in FIG. 16 (1604).

In a step (not shown in FIG. 17), the DSP 804 submits the advertisingproposal to ad exchange(s) 810/880 via the communication interface usinga demand side interface as shown in FIGS. 8A-8B. In one embodiment, theDSP 804 receives a communication from the ad exchange(s) 810/880 in theevent they use a planning algorithm to change the advertising campaign,wherein the ad exchange changes the advertising campaign as a result ofoptimizing globally across different advertising campaigns and users.Examples of the planning algorithm include those flowcharts depicted inFIGS. 6-7.

In one embodiment, the communication interface of DSP 804 is coupled viathe Internet to an ad exchange inventory database 822 using for examplethe demand side interface, wherein the ad exchange inventory database822 is input via a complementary inventory management platform 834. Inone embodiment, the node (user's browser) is coupled via the Internet toan advertiser dashboard 862 comprising a user interface to providereporting for previously purchased plans, audio affidavits, and progresstowards fulfillment.

Although the foregoing embodiments have been described in some detailfor purposes of clarity of understanding, the invention is not limitedto the details provided. There are many alternative ways of implementingthe invention. The disclosed embodiments are illustrative and notrestrictive.

What is claimed is:
 1. (canceled)
 2. A system, comprising: acommunication interface; and a processor coupled to the communicationinterface and configured to: receive via the communication interface aselection of a broadcast media ad network and a set of parametersincluding one or both of a goal and a constraint associated with anadvertising campaign; provide an interface for directly uploading an adcreative associated with the ad campaign to be played on a plurality ofreal-time media-delivery appliances each in a corresponding one of aplurality of broadcast stations, wherein each real-time media-deliveryappliance in the plurality of real-time media-delivery appliancescomprises: an audio codec; a capability to directly play the ad creativevia a radio broadcast station mixer; and a capability to directlymonitor output in-band of the radio broadcast mixer; determine based atleast in part on said selection and said set of parameters anadvertising proposal, the advertising proposal including anidentification of a set of broadcasters associated with the selectedbroadcast media ad network and for each a corresponding advertising planportion of the advertising proposal; and cause information representingthe advertising proposal to be displayed at a node from which saidselection and set of parameters were received.
 3. The system of claim 2,wherein the processor is further configured to cause a plurality ofbroadcast media ad networks to be displayed for selection.
 4. The systemof claim 3, wherein one of the plurality of broadcast media ad networksto be displayed is at least one of the following: private, wherein allstations associated with the ad network are affiliated with one entity,and public, wherein all stations associated with the ad network areaffiliated with a plurality of entities.
 5. The system of claim 3,wherein a first ad network of the plurality of broadcast media adnetworks to be displayed may be associated with a different data setthan a second ad network of the plurality of broadcast media ad networksto be displayed.
 6. The system of claim 5, wherein the processor isfurther configured to receive a selection between a first-party data setand the different data set to be applied to the first ad network.
 7. Thesystem of claim 2, wherein the advertising proposal comprises a summaryinformation comprising a daypart.
 8. The system of claim 7, wherein thesummary information includes detailed information with regards to aspecific placement.
 9. The system of claim 2, wherein the processor isfurther configured to cause a booking control for booking theadvertising proposal to be displayed at the node from which saidselection and set of parameters were received.
 10. The system of claim9, wherein the processor is further configured to attempt to fulfill theadvertising proposal in the event the booking control is asserted. 11.The system of claim 10, wherein to attempt to fulfill the advertisingproposal comprises, in the event that at the time the booking control isasserted the advertising proposal cannot be completely fulfilledcomprises presenting at least one of the following selections: healingcompletely; healing completely and notify user of options; healing bestefforts; and healing best efforts and notify user of options.
 12. Thesystem of claim 2, wherein the processor is further configured to submitthe advertising proposal to an ad exchange via the communicationinterface using a demand side interface.
 13. The system of claim 12,wherein the processor is further configured to receive a communicationfrom the ad exchange in the event the ad exchange uses a planningalgorithm to change the advertising campaign, wherein the ad exchangechanges the advertising campaign as a result of optimizing globallyacross different advertising campaigns and users.
 14. The system ofclaim 2, wherein the processor is further configured to cause aninterface for changing an input associated with the set of parameters inthe event a user wishes to iterate a next advertising proposal.
 15. Thesystem of claim 2, wherein: the goal is at least one of the following:demographics, demo-match, and number of impressions; the constraint isat least one of the following: budget and price efficiency; theparameter is at least one of the following: time campaign starts andtime campaign ends.
 16. The system of claim 2, wherein the broadcastmedia is at least one of the following: linear broadcast, streaming, andhybrid linear/streaming.
 17. The system of claim 2, wherein thecommunication interface is coupled via the Internet to an ad exchangeinventory database, wherein the ad exchange inventory database is inputvia a complementary inventory management platform.
 18. The system ofclaim 2, wherein the processor is further configured to cause aninterface for uploading an ad creative associated with the ad campaign.19. The system of claim 2, wherein the node is coupled via the Internetto an advertiser dashboard comprising a user interface to providereporting for previously purchased plans, audio affidavits, and progresstowards fulfillment.
 20. A method, comprising: receiving a selection ofa broadcast media ad network and a set of parameters including one orboth of a goal and a constraint associated with an advertising campaign;providing an interface for directly uploading an ad creative associatedwith the ad campaign to be played on a plurality of real-timemedia-delivery appliances each in a corresponding one of a plurality ofbroadcast stations, wherein each real-time media-delivery appliance inthe plurality of real-time media-delivery appliances comprises: an audiocodec; a capability to directly play the ad creative via a radiobroadcast station mixer; and a capability to directly monitor outputin-band of the radio broadcast mixer; determining based at least in parton said selection and said set of parameters an advertising proposal,the advertising proposal including an identification of a set ofbroadcasters associated with the selected broadcast media ad network andfor each a corresponding advertising plan portion of the advertisingproposal; and causing information representing the advertising proposalto be displayed at a node from which said selection and set ofparameters were received.
 21. A computer program product, the computerprogram product being embodied in a non-transitory computer readablestorage medium and comprising computer instructions for: receiving aselection of a broadcast media ad network and a set of parametersincluding one or both of a goal and a constraint associated with anadvertising campaign; providing an interface for directly uploading anad creative associated with the ad campaign to be played on a pluralityof real-time media-delivery appliances each in a corresponding one of aplurality of broadcast stations, wherein each real-time media-deliveryappliance in the plurality of real-time media-delivery appliancescomprises: an audio codec; a capability to directly play the ad creativevia a radio broadcast station mixer; and a capability to directlymonitor output in-band of the radio broadcast mixer; determining basedat least in part on said selection and said set of parameters anadvertising proposal, the advertising proposal including anidentification of a set of broadcasters associated with the selectedbroadcast media ad network and for each a corresponding advertising planportion of the advertising proposal; and causing informationrepresenting the advertising proposal to be displayed at a node fromwhich said selection and set of parameters were received.